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How to Give a 6-Minute Presentation at 1 Million Cups

As an entrepreneur, you’ll often be asked to give a pitch about your company and your offering. Of course, there’s the 30-second elevator pitch, the 2-minute pitch, and so on, but you’ll have to pitch your company no matter what you do.

At 1 Million Cups (I lead the Orlando chapter), you have six minutes to give a presentation, followed by 20 minutes of questions, constructive advice, and feedback, about both your company and your presentation.

I’ve seen countless entrepreneurs give what is likely their first presentation, and they blow it. They try to cram as much information into their slides as they can, they fill us up with statistics and stories, and they tell us as much as they can about the problem, its scope, and the heartbreak of whatever it is they’re fixing. They also include their own journey, their history, how they learned about the problem, and how they decided to fix it.

Eugeniu Rotari of Via Typing presenting at 1 Million Cups Orlando.
They have a couple dozen slides — I once saw a presentation that had 30 slides — and they think six minutes is plenty of time to share their vision about how they’re going to solve this problem that’s plaguing millions.

Except they barely get through the first three slides when time runs out.

They failed. We didn’t learn about the company, their work, whether the problem can actually be fixed, or whether they’re the ones capable of doing it.

Ideally, when you have a six-minute presentation, you should have a slide deck with only six slides. Your slide deck should have very little text on it, and it should have stunning visuals. (Those are less important, but still helpful.)

What it should not have:

  • More than 5 bullet points.
  • More than 5 words in each point.
  • Organizational charts.
  • A doctoral dissertation’s worth of industry statistics.

How should your 1 Million Cups presentation should go

This is a Problem-Solution format that tells people, well, what the problem is, and how you can solve it.

Basically, your ideal slide deck should contain the following information.

  1. Opening splash screen
  2. The problem you want to solve
  3. The cost/size of the problem (the TAM, SAM, and SOM)
  4. The solution to the problem
  5. How YOU provide the solution
  6. Your contact info.

Don’t forget, your presentation should start with a story. Not necessarily a story about you, but about a client who benefitted from your work. Tell this while we’re looking at your second slide.

“ABC company had a problem: they were losing $50,000 per month on employee turnover and onboarding. We helped them identify a manager who was causing the high turnover and fed him to alligators. We also created a digital training and onboarding system that turned a three-month, paper-based onboarding process into a process that beamed important company information directly into a person’s brain. The company saved $600,000 per year, and they gave me a $25 Starbucks gift card.”

Or something like that.

For slide three, talk about how bad management and lengthy turnover cost American businesses eleventy-billion dollars per year. And in your chosen industry, it’s $2 billion. And in your home state, it costs your industry $500 million.

Slide four is about your alligator farm and data-brain transference beam.

Slide five is about how you patented the data-brain transference beam and now license it out to other HR consultants.

Slide six is how people can get ahold of you if they want to reduce their own onboarding costs, or are really tired of their brother-in-law.

Rather than squeezing every piece of information into your presentation that you can, leave that information for the actual Q&A portion of the presentation.

And if there was something you didn’t get to talk about don’t worry, there will be plenty of people with questions. But if it’s critical that you talk about it, then be sure to include it in your presentation. Cut something else out so you can get the most important information in there.

Another possible layout

Unlike the previous format, this is a Problem-Assistance presentation. Basically, you’re saying “I have a problem I need help with.”

Your format will look more like this.

  1. Opening screen
  2. The work you do
  3. How long have you done it/your education or experience
  4. The problem you are facing
  5. The things you have tried —OR — what kind of help you need
  6. Contact info

The information is the same, and maybe you’ll open with a similar story. But the focus of this presentation will be on your struggles with growth and expansion or finding new clients or dealing with pesky alligator inspectors or finding a good defense attorney.

The ideas are the same: You still only have six minutes, and you’ll get 20 minutes of questions and feedback. So don’t try to cram in everything, just include the basic facts and trust that people will ask you the questions that will allow you to share that information.

Be sure to practice your talk a few times, even if it’s just while you’re driving in your car. But as long as you’re telling your stories and sharing your information, the presentation will flow naturally, and it will come easily.

Finally, make sure you prepare your slide deck to show on someone else’s technology.

Good luck!

Photo credit: Erik Deckers

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Five Things to Do Before You Present On Someone Else’s Tech

A couple months ago, a friend was going to give a presentation at our local 1 Million Cups chapter here in Orlando. He sent me a PowerPoint version of a slide deck he had spent several hours on. He had built it in Apple Keynote, exported it to PowerPoint, and I uploaded it to Google Slides.

We run all of our slide decks off my Google Drive account on the computer in the meeting room, rather than trying to mess with thumb drives or using another person’s laptop. We only have one hour for our meeting and we can’t waste a few minutes swapping out laptops or trying to get the screen mirroring to function.

“We may have a few formatting issues,” I warned.

“It should be fine,” he said.

“It won’t be fine,” I said.

Luckily, we had time to run through the deck and we saw that there were, in fact, several formatting problems with the text. He spent the next few minutes fixing them as he cursed Apple, Google, and for good measure, Windows about the “utter shit show” that is converting files.

“What’s even causing this?” my friend ranted. “Why can’t I just upload a Keynote deck to Google Drive and have it work?”

“Because Google and Apple don’t play well together. They both refuse to try to accommodate the other and so you can’t open Apple products in Google Drive,” I said.

Many people have this problem, especially when they present at events and use the host’s tech instead of their own. I used to get rather annoyed when an organizer wouldn’t let me use my laptop. After all, I made the presentation on my software (Keynote), the fonts were in my system, and the videos were embedded in the deck. As long as I could use my laptop, everything was great.

Once I became an organizer, I got annoyed at the prima donnas who insisted on using their own gear.

(And yes, I recognize the conflict between those two ideas. I’m fine with it.)

But I realized why the organizers want you to use their tech. It’s either something provided by the conference hotel or center, and they know it will work. Or they just don’t have time to switch between everyone’s computers and then fart around with getting the monitors to work because you don’t have the right kind of adapter or the power cord is too short.

If you do a lot of public speaking, you will inevitably be asked to present on someone else’s technology and equipment. Don’t be a jerk about it or believe your presentation is so precious that it can only be done on your computer or the entire conference will fail and the hotel will fall into the ocean.

Of course, this isn’t ideal, but we can’t always get what we want, and is one of those times.

So here are five things to do when you present on someone else’s tech.

1. Keep the design simple

My friend, Dave Delaney, is an amazing speaker. (And he’s not the guy I mentioned above.)
When I design my slides, I like to use one large photo as the backdrop and then a short headline in bold. If necessary, I’ll use bullet points with 1 – 3 words per bullet item.

(This has nothing to do with presenting on someone else’s tech, I just think it’s important to mention because I still see so many people who don’t do this. PRACTICE GOOD DESIGN, PEOPLE!)

That also means avoid all transitions and fancy graphics. They may not work properly if your deck is converted to another format, like Keynote to Powerpoint or vice versa, let alone Google Drive. (See #4.) Plus, transitions are the Comic Sans of presentations.

Remember, your slide deck is there as visual support, it’s NOT the purpose of your presentation. If we can read your slide deck without you, you have an article, not a presentation. But if you can give your presentation without your slide deck, then you’re a real speaker.

2. Use basic fonts.

Remember, Apple and Google do not play well together, so the fonts you use probably do not exist on Google Drive. That system doesn’t have all the fonts you do, whether you use Apple or Windows. That means Google will often change your fonts to its closest equivalents, but that’s what screws up your formatting. (Here’s a list of Google’s available fonts.)

You can paste your text into a slide, but that doesn’t mean it will look the same when you open it somewhere else.

Pick basic fonts like Gil Sans or *shudder* Arial. Don’t use cool fonts that you downloaded from a font site. They probably won’t upload.

3. Upload your slide deck to Google Drive.

There are three ways you can get your slide deck to your event organizer.

  1. You can email it to them.
  2. You can share it via Dropbox.
  3. You can upload it to Google Drive.*

*You can also use Slideshare, but I don’t want to type “Google Drive or Slideshare” over and over.

Just be aware that if you do the first two options, the organizer may upload your deck to their own Google Drive.

But — and this is critical — Google Drive will completely screw up your formatting. And you’ll learn this right in the middle of your presentation when your beautifully-designed slides look like hot garbage.

Instead of sending your slide deck to the organizer, upload it to your own Google Drive and then share the link via email. This lets you double-check all formatting and avoid any embarrassing formatting issues. You can be assured that everything looks great on the day of your presentation.

Plus, if all else fails, you can open the web browser on their computer, log into your Google account (it’s your Gmail password), and drive your presentation from there.

It’s a good idea to upload it even if you’re using your own tech just so you have a backup in case your computer breaks or gets stolen.

Note: If you use Apple Keynote, you will have to export your slide deck to a PowerPoint format before you upload it.

4. Do NOT put your deck on a flash drive

You’re not Johnny Mnemonic, so stop handing people a thumb drive with your presentation on it. It’s getting harder to use flash drives these days anyway, because a lot of newer computers don’t have a USB drive. Or they use a web-based presentation platform, not PowerPoint or Keynote. A lot of computers don’t have USB-A slots on their computers anymore, at least in the Apple world. My 2019 MacBook Pro only has two USB-C slots and nowhere to put in a flash drive.

A flash drive should be a backup method only, not your primary means of delivery. But if you insist on this, make sure you have an adapter that lets you plug your Flash drive into a USB-C slot. Remember, you are the person responsible for making sure your presentation will work on the host’s computer, not the host. So if you insist on using a flash drive, make sure that you have the necessary adapters for any situation.

5. If you insist on using your own tech, make sure you have these things

  • A USB clicker (affiliate link). These come with a little USB dongle that plugs into a computer and will work on Windows and Apple.
  • USB-rechargeable batteries (affiliate link). These are AAA and they fit the USB clicker listed above, but if your clicker takes AA, then get AA rechargeables. These things can plug into a USB slot on the computer and charge in an hour. You don’t want to get to a presentation and find your clicker isn’t working. Just carry a couple spares and the charging cable in your bag.
  • A USB-to-HDMI-and-VGA adapter (affiliate link). I carry my HDMI/VGA adapter because there are still a few places rocking the old VGA cables and won’t upgrade any time soon. You don’t want to get caught out.
  • If you have a newer Apple computer, get a 7-in-1 USB-C hub adapter (affiliate link). The one I listed here has ports for HDMI, USB-A, USB-C, micro SD, and standard SD cards.
  • A 10-foot power strip with USB slots (affiliate link). I have been in plenty of situations where the facility does not have an adequate power source, or they only have one single-plug extension cord and I have two devices. A power strip will alleviate that problem. And the 10-foot cord will cover most lengths, especially if you already have your computer power cord with you.

You don’t need to carry these things all the time, but you do want to put them in your bag or briefcase on the day you speak so you don’t get caught in a bind when you show up and find that your presentation room is not equipped with any technology made before 2010.

And remember to write your name on all these items so you can show that they’re yours and not the organizer’s.

When you present on someone else’s tech, it will take some additional preparation, but it’s a great way to ensure that you’re fully prepared. Just design the deck with basic fonts and photos, upload it to Google Drive, double-check the formatting, and then share the link with the organizer. Carry your own tech so you can handle any hiccups that happen on the day of your talk.

Photo credit: Dave Delaney (DaveDelaney.me, Used with permission)

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Encourage Your Employees to Become Rock Stars

Over the last 20 years, I have worked for (and known people who worked for) bosses who did not want their employees to become prominent names in their industry. Whether they felt threatened, thought it distracted them from their “real” work, or thought it was a waste of time and resources, these managers didn’t like employees who had name recognition

Lindsay Manfredi. My good friend and bassist for the band Cold. She really IS a rock star, both in music and personal branding.
One friend — let’s call him Burt O’Higgins — went to work for a software company after spending years developing his own personal brand, becoming one of his industry’s top thought leaders. The company considered it a real coup to get my friend to work there. “But,” they said, “you can’t speak at any more conference events as yourself. You can’t be “Burt O’Higgins from Big Software,” you have to be “I’m from Big Software, my name is Burt.”

They couldn’t give any logical reason why they didn’t like it, but the message was clear: you’re more popular than us and we don’t like it.

So Burt left, started his own company, and worked for Big Software as a freelance contractor, charging more than his old salary and working fewer hours. And he got to speak at as many conferences as he wanted, which boosted his own popularity and increased his client base.

Big Software might have benefited more if they had just let Burt be Burt, do his thing under his own name, and still attract plenty of attention for his employer.

There’s nothing wrong with letting your employees be industry rock stars, becoming one of the popular thought leaders that others look to for new ways of thinking. In fact, there are a few benefits your company will see by helping your employees become those leaders.

1) It makes them effective communicators

Every job description I see requires “effective oral and written communication skills.” Speaking at 4 – 6 conferences a year is going to build up effective oral communication skills. Writing articles for trade journals and blogs is going to develop effective written communication skills.

And if your people don’t have those skills, send them to Toastmasters. Pay for books and training courses. Send them on seminars where they can hone those skills. Pay for memberships in professional associations. And give them an outlet to express all this newfound knowledge.

Then unleash them on industry and allied conferences. Encourage them to write articles for trade journals or the company blog. Ask them to speak at conferences. Make sure people see your rock stars at different industry happenings, so they know your company is serious about thought leadership in that field.

But best of all, think about how much better your rock stars will be at communicating fpr your company as well. Not only will they be better at communicating internally, but they’ll be doing some great marketing and brand awareness building for your company too.

2) Your company looks like a great company for hiring them

One thing GE was known for during the Jack Welch years was for turning out great CEOs for other corporations. Partly because Jack wasn’t going to leave short of a military coup, but also because when GE executives reached the VP level, they were so good at their jobs that other corporations wanted them to run their own companies.

The same thing happened to the Oakland A’s in the early 2000s. (Read Moneyball by Michael Lewis. It’s not just a baseball book, it’s a primer on unorthodox-but-effective corporate management.) The A’s scooped up baseball players who didn’t fit the traditional baseball mode, helped them develop their best skills, and turned them into the kinds of ballplayers that other teams wanted badly. And the Oakland A’s became a stellar baseball team to boot, because they built the team around their players’ strengths.

So how cool will your company look when you start churning out superstar after superstar? How many CMOs can you create? Or HR directors? Or CFOs? Or national sales managers? Your company can be seen as an incubator for some of your industry’s leading talent if you just help them develop.

3) It’s free marketing

My friend Burt would go to 6 –10 conferences every year and share his knowledge. He used his clients as case studies, but he never made sales pitches. Instead, he just shared stories and ideas with a rapt audience for an hour — an audience filled with people who hired experts like him.

Now, imagine your sales and marketing people speaking at conferences, demonstrating their knowledge and skills about the problems your company solves. Imagine a water filter company educating coffee shop managers and brewers about pure water at a national coffee or craft brewery conference. You can educate people about the importance of pure water without ever talking about your product, but when people read the name in the bio, they can put two and two together.

When I speak at conferences, I talk about how to improve your writing, or the future of content marketing, or how to use novel writing techniques in business writing. I never do a sales pitch, but my expertise clearly speaks for itself. And I’ve gotten clients just by speaking at industry conferences.

So what happens if your marketing director speaks at an industry conference, or your HR director, or your operations manager, or even your CEO? You can have a big influence on hundreds of people without once mentioning your product or company just by sharing your knowledge. Now, what if you could unleash 10 rock stars on the different conferences of the industries you serve.

4) You’re creating rock stars for your company

“But people will improve their skills and they’ll want to leave our company,” is a common refrain among managers.

Seriously? You don’t want people to improve their skills? You’d be happy that average people with average skills are staying at your company for ten or fifteen years? That’s the most depressing thing I’ve ever heard.

Let’s face two facts. First, people are going to leave your company. No one stays at a company very long anymore. That’s how employment works these days. So train them, help them develop, and wish them well when they leave, knowing you taught them enough that someone else wants them. And you’ll get their best work out of them while they’re there.

Second, the people who leave will become decision makers and influencers in other companies. What if your marketing manager leaves to become a VP of Marketing at one of your clients? What do you think she’ll tell her new colleagues if she leaves with bad feelings? Conversely, what will she tell her new colleagues if she leaves with your full support and gratitude?

(This is also why it’s not a bad idea to hire people in their 50s and 60s. Rather than turning them down because “they’re only going to be here for a few years,” recognize that no one says in their same position for 30 years anymore. Hire older workers and get some of the very best, most experienced people you’ll ever find. But that’s for another article.)

Developing rock stars for your company has many upsides and very few downsides. You’ll create top talent for your company, which means they’ll do their best work for you. They’ll be out promoting themselves (and thus, your company) with their speaking and writing. And they’ll moving up to positions of influence and decision making, which means you’ll have allies in other companies.

The only downside is that you may have people who are more well-known than you. But you can turn that around and become known as the company (or manager) who produces rock star after rock star. So start writing and speaking about how to create rock stars within your company, and guess what you can become. . .

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Why I Left Social Media Marketing

I used to be somebody. I was kind of a big deal. Well, almost a big deal. I would sometimes go to social media conferences and hear my name whispered as I walked by.

“Hey, that’s Erik Deckers.”

And unlike high school, it was never followed by “LET’S KICK HIS ASS!”

I did book signings. I spoke around the country. I even got paid for it. It was pretty cool.

I was one of the early digital and social media marketing pioneers. I started blogging in 1997. I started doing digital marketing in 1998. I joined Twitter in 2007. And I wrote some of the first books on personal branding and social media marketing.

I’ve been blessed that a lot of people have used my books to make big changes to their companies and to their lives. I’ve heard from people who followed just a few of the steps in Branding Yourself and landed an internship or even a new job. A woman who has since become a very good friend first got in touch with Kyle Lacy and me to say she had followed our LinkedIn chapter and gotten three job interviews in three weeks.

I’ve heard from others who used No Bullshit Social Media to convince their bosses to let them start doing social media marketing for their company, and now they’re heading up the company’s entire social media efforts.

But social media got crowded. It got filled up with newbies, fakes, and charlatans who thought they were social media marketers because they used Facebook, or bought thousands of Twitter followers.

The industry was overrun by rampaging hordes of ex-bartenders and college interns who didn’t have years of marketing experience. And I spent so much time trying to convince people of the importance of it that my client work was slipping.

So I stopped doing social media marketing, and focused on content marketing. It was a hard decision, but I could see social media was about to be completely ruined by marketers, who were taking it over like the killer ant scene in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

[Seriously. Launch any new social media tool, and the marketers swarm all over it like that Russian dude at the end. Don’t believe me? Google “Snapchat for marketers.”]

At the time, content marketing was still fairly new, because most of the practitioners were still professional writers, videographers, photographers, and podcasters. We hadn’t yet been taken over by scribblers who thought “literally” meant the opposite of literally.

I miss the good old days.

I worked to hone my skills as a writer. My partner, Paul, handled the social media marketing for our clients, and I read, studied, trained, and practiced to produce the best work we were capable of.

During this time, I co-authored a new book on content marketing, ghostwrote a book with the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, and even started ghostwriting the autobiography of a former U.S. Congressman.

For the last three years, I’ve kept my head down, and focused on my craft. I’ve studied several favorite authors. I’m revisiting my speechwriting roots, and learning how slam poetry can influence my work. I even spent three months as the Writer-In-Residence at the Jack Kerouac House here in Orlando, beating out nearly 300 people from around the world for the coveted spot.

It’s paying off. I’ve written several short stories, made it halfway through my novel, participated in several literary readings around Central Florida, spoken at a number of writing conferences, and contributed to different literary publications and events.

My efforts have also helped my clients. The content marketing work we do is bringing them more traffic and leads, and we do it by offering some of the best business writing available. We’re writing stuff people like to read, and getting people to share it online. Rather than churn out as much mediocre content as we can, we focus on high-quality writing.

I won’t lie though. I’ve missed being in front of an audience. I’ve missed meeting new people in new cities. So I’ve decided to shake the dust off my shoulders, rub the sand from my eyes, and re-enter the world of personal branding and public promotion.

Starting in August, I’ll write more frequently on this blog again, and booking more conference speaking slots, especially around my new home state, Florida. I hope to see you around.

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Louisville Digital Association’s 6th Annual Digital Media Summit Schedule

I’m very proud to be one of the speakers at the 6th annual Digital Media Summit in Louisville on October 16. it’s a single day event held in Frazier Hall at Bellarmine University, and it’s sponsored by the fine fols at Brown-Forman and Bellarmine University’s School of Communication. You can get tickets here.

With the tagline, Improve your business and marketing through technology, several of us will be talking about how to do social media marketing better, including my two co-authors, Jason Falls and Kyle Lacy.

Tentative Agenda for Louisville Digital Media Summit

8 – 8:30 a.m. Networking, Breakfast, Setup

8:30 a.m. Introductions Jason Falls

8:40 a.m. Opening Keynote A Decade of Chasing What’s Next
Rick Murray, former president of Edelman Digital

9:30 a.m. 10 Professional Writing Secrets
Erik Deckers, Pro Blog Service

10:10 a.m. Break

10:20 a.m. The Mobile Commerce Revolution
Tim Hayden & Tom Webster, Edison Research

11:10 a.m. Paid Advertising In Facebook, How PPC Ninja’s Really Work Founder
Jason Brown, SERPWoo

12:00 p.m. Lunch

1:00 p.m. Bellarmine School of Communication
Dr. Lara Needham, Bellarmine University

1:20 p.m. 5 Technology Trends Disrupting Behavior
Kyle Lacy, Exact Target Marketing Cloud

2:10 p.m. Communicating at the right time, right channel and right situation in a crisis
Dr. Karen Freberg, University of Louisville

3:00 p.m. Break

3:10 p.m. Your Brand, Your Brain
Julia Roy, CoFounder, Workhacks

4:00 p.m. What Didn’t We Learn? Speaker Panel
Jason Falls, Moderator

4:30 p.m. Closing

You can register for the event here. By the way, if you’re interested in going, I’ve got a special discount code you can use. Just email me — erik at problogservice dot com — and I’ll give it to you.

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Five Ways for Creative Writers to Make Money (And Two That Don’t Work)

I had a great discussion with a new friend, @SarahSuksiri, about creative writing, poetry — I learned a lot about poetry and poets from her — and how writers try to make money while pretending they don’t associate themselves with filthy lucre.

This attitude is especially prevalent with poets, who think they should only do poetry for their art. If this is your attitude, repeat after me:

Hello, welcome to Starbucks

For those writers who want to earn a living from your creative writing degree or MFA, here are five ways to actually make some money from writing that does not involve freelancing. Or you can at least show your parents that your 4 – 7 years of higher education were not a complete exercise in navel gazing.

1. Sell ebooks

Jim Kukral is the master of promoting self-published books. He’s made his name helping new authors and. . . let’s say, “niche” authors find an audience and sell their books. Even the unusual ones. (Books, not authors. Well, authors too.)

The numbers in self-publishing make sense. Without going too much into the entire “traditional publishing versus self-publishing debate,” let me tell you what Kukral and others say about the economics: If you sell a traditionally-published book for $20, you’ll make $1 – $1.40 per book in royalties, after you pay back your advance. If you sell a self-published e-book for $2.99, you’ll make $2. Sell it for $9.99, and you’ll make $7.

Now, you may sell more books in bookstores with a traditional publisher (plus it’s awesome to have your book on a bookstore shelf), but you have to sell 5 – 7 trad-pub books to make $7, versus selling one $10 ebook. Sell 1,000 books, and you get either $1,400 or $7,000. If all you sold is 1,000 books, you won’t get that $1,400 from your publisher; that’s all payback for your advance. But that $7,000 is yours off the bat. (Warning: this takes a lot of social media marketing and promotion.)

2. Become a speaker

Doing this taught me to be a better writer.
Professional speakers command a fee. If you’re a nonfiction B2B writer like me, you have a system or knowledge that you can parlay into a one to six hour teaching session, and people will pay for that (see #5 below). If you write about important social issues, whether fiction or nonfiction, you may be able to get a gig as a keynote speaker. Keynotes make anywhere from $500 to $3,000, and even more. (Of course, you need to almost be a professional keynote speaker and that takes a few years. You’ll know when you’re ready for that.)

Build up your stage legs by giving readings, teaching small classes, and doing small talks around town for free. Join Toastmasters if you’re not comfortable with speaking. Promote yourself with a blog and become active on social media.

3. Give readings or host organized events

Slam poets earn money through their readings (Slammings? Happenings?), because they treat their work like a musician or a theatre troupe. They sell tickets or have a cover charge, and they sell books in the back of the room. Depending on the size of your audience and your rates, you could make a couple hundred dollars in a single night. Not enough to pay the rent, but you’re certainly earning more in one night than working three shifts at High-Priced Boots And Pants in the mall.

Promote the bejeezus out of these events, and get a big crowd. If you don’t like marketing, you’d better learn to real quick. You want a big crowd that’s interested in what you have to say. Even if you want to be a purist who never accepts money for their work (do your events for free then), you still want a big crowd of people who clap for you (or snap. Do they still snap at poetry slams?), and run up to you afterward, gushing and stumbling over their words. Promote these events with social media and old school marketing techniques to draw that crowd.

4. Combine your work with another passion and travel

Writer Chris Guillebeau, who wrote The Art of Nonconformity, has the kind of job that lets him work anywhere. So he does it while he travels to different parts of the globe in an attempt to visit every single country around the world.

As a writer, you have the flexibility to work anywhere you want, and on any kind of project you want. In some cases, you can even work in strange new locales, like the African Bush, the Canadian wilderness, or Iowa. If you can leverage your writing skills into a real money-earner, like a freelance copywriter, go where the work is, or just work from your favorite coffee shop. If you can get a nonprofit to hire you for six months, rent a short-term apartment in that city, and go to work.

5. Teach classes and seminars

Writing coach Jeff Goins is making his name not only as a writer, but as a writing coach. He’s built his reputation and living by offering several online webinars and ongoing classes per year, as well as selling educational materials to budding writers. One of his multi-week classes can cost a few hundred dollars per student. Similarly, I’ve begun teaching classes for the Indiana Writers Center, and I was happily surprised when I was handed a check at the end of the first class. I had forgotten all about it.

So what if you charged $200 for a 4 week online class and got 15 students to sign up? That’s $3,000 a month. It’s not downtown-penthouse money, but for a young writer who has a roommate or spouse-with-a-job, it’s a significant contribution to the household income. And what if you could repeat that model every month, or even run it twice a month on different days, but only did it a few times a year?

Further, if you have an MFA, you’re qualified to teach writing and English at a local college or university. (Actually, if you have a master’s degree in anything, you’re qualified to teach undergraduates in that field.) It’s not great pay — I get anywhere from $700 – $1,000 a month for a single public speaking class. And you certainly don’t want to build a career on being an adjunct. But if you’re looking for beer money, or a little something to boost your income, this is a great way to use your degree and your passion.

And now for the two don’ts: I’ve seen other people try this, and it’s rough. A lot of people have started down one of these two paths only to realize the numbers don’t work, and they’re out all that time and expense.

1. Start a website or journal that relies on banner advertising

Ad sales are a hard, scary way to make money. Even big city newspapers aren’t making a ton of money from them. Advertisers only want to pay per thousand displayed ads (some even only want to pay per click). These advertisers will only pay between $10 – $20 per thousand visitors, which works out to $.01 – $.02 per view).

So if you want to earn $50 for a single article, you have to generate between 2,500 – 5,000 visitors to that one page page. But if the advertiser is paying by the click, you may get $.20 per click, but if you want $50, you need 250 clicks. And if the click-through rate on an ad is 1% (which is actually kind of high), you need 25,000 visitors to see that ad. If you could bring in 25,000 visitors a month to your website, you need to sell ebooks, not display ads.

2. Traditional publishing

(Otherwise known as “my editor is going to hate me now!”)

While everyone wants to have that big blockbuster that makes them more money than J.K. Rowling and John Grisham combined, seriously, what are the odds of that happening? I’ve written three books and ghostwritten half of another. If I tried to live on the royalties of those books, I’d have a very fancy cardboard box under a bridge.

When I saw this photo, it was one of the proudest days of my life. My mom, not so much.
Even if you’re lucky enough to get a publishing deal, you need to sell hundreds of thousands of books in order to get rich; several tens of thousand per year to earn a salary. Let’s say you get $1.20 in royalties for every published book you sell. If you want to earn $48,000 a year in royalties, you need to sell 40,000 books every single year.

Don’t get me wrong. Traditional publishing is great. I owe Que Biz-Tech and Pearson Publishing a lot. So much of what I’ve been able to do has happened because they took a chance on me. I love knowing that my books have been printed, occupy a physical space in the world, and I got a thrill knowing that No Bullshit Social Media was seen by hundreds, if not thousands, of impressionable children walking into a Barnes & Noble. I encourage many writers to try to get their books published by a real publishing house before they take up the self-publishing baton.

But — and this is the point I want to stress — traditional publishing is not how you’re going to make a long-term living. The numbers just aren’t there anymore. Not at $1.40 royalties per book. You’re going to push, promote, and shout about your book to as many people as you can, whether you self-publish, or you go the traditional route. Either method involves the same amount of work. The only difference is there’s a bigger payoff in the self-pub route than in trad-pub. (On the other hand, you’ll never see a self-published book in a Barnes & Noble.)

Having said that, having a traditionally published book is an excellent way to build your reputation, which makes numbers 2 – 5 that much easier to accomplish.

Now that I’ve crapped on your dreams or given you a great idea, what are some other ideas you have for writers who want to make money? If you’re making money from your writing, what are you doing that earns a steady (or at least significant) income? Leave a note in the comments.