Anne H. Janzer's Blog, page 15

Book Promotions: Short-Term Sales, Long-Term Benefits

Book marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. That’s a great metaphor—one that rings true for many authors who suddenly find themselves on an endless journey of book promotion. But it’s not the only sports-related metaphor that applies.

Slow and steady may win the race, but many trainers advocate high-intensity interval training (HIIT) to build fitness quickly.

Discount price promotions are the high-intensity interval training of book marketing.

To recap the sports metaphor, high-intensity interval training is doing segments of using short bursts of intense activity, combined with spells of lower or medium-intensity work. Experts say that interval training a faster way to build fitness than simply trudging at a moderate pace for 30 minute son a treadmill a few times a week.

The periods of intense work create unseen, metabolic shifts in fat burning, insulin resistance, and cardiovascular fitness. The follow-on, unseen benefits are the real payoff.

In book marketing, running a discount book promotion is like doing a quick sprint in book sales. You focus your efforts in a week or less and discount the price so you can be “all-out” on book sales.

Like the sprinter, you cover more distance during those short bursts—in this case, selling more books. But the real benefits come from the lasting effects of those short-term sales.

Defining Success

Most people evaluate the success of a book promotion based on how many books it sold and whether it paid for itself. The financial issues are usually top of mind:

How many books did you sell? Did you earn more in royalties than you spent on promotion?Did you earn at least as much as you would get from baseline, full-price sales?

Focusing on the direct Return on Investment disregards those hidden benefits, like the metabolic magic of high-intensity interval workouts.

The long-term success of your promotion will take more time to measure. You need to ask questions like,

Did the promotion reach the right people—those who will appreciate the book?Will people who bought it actually read it?Will they review it and/or recommend it to others?

Those questions are harder to answer. You may not know for a while. But that’s where the real magic of book promotions kicks in.

The “Metabolic” Benefits of Discount Book Promotions

What happens when you get the book into the hands of hundreds, or possibly thousands, of people who are your target readers?

Let’s look at some of these unseen benefits:

If you managed the promotion to appeal to the Amazon algorithms, your book may continue selling at an elevated rate or some time after the price resets. That’s like fat-burning that keeps happening after you stop exercising—a lovely bonus!Over time, more people will leave reviews for your book, which then helps it find even more new readers.Getting the book into the hands of its ideal audience results in more recommendations, more positive reviews on other platforms, a growing email list for you, and more. Adjust Your Workout for Your Fitness Level

Back to that sports analogy: If you haven’t gotten off the couch for a year, your “high-intensity” sprint might be much slower than someone who has been training. There’s a reason that gyms keep telling you to “consult your physician.”

The same thing is true for book discounts. Starting too aggressively isn’t hazardous to your health, but your results will depend in part on your existing platform, your budget, and your book. You may not hit it out of the park on your first attempt.

The good news is that you can start small. Experiment with setting the price down for five days and sending the right readers to the promotion. Once you’ve done that, you can try a bigger promotion—perhaps investing in a book promotion website or running a few ads alongside your other efforts.

The end game isn’t just book sales—it’s building your book’s overall readership and audience. And that will help to sustain all the books that you write.

For More on Book Promotions

If you’re interested in trying this approach to building your audience, check out my book marketing webinar on March 26, Building an Audience with Discount Book Promotions.

Learn more and register here.

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Writing to Connect: Showing Up as Human

When my book The Writer’s Process was first published almost five years ago, it had a rocky launch into the world. A professional reviewer gave it a terrible review, basically questioning why anyone would want to read a book like this.

They also criticized my writing, calling the prose lugubrious. Ouch!

That review was an all-you-can-eat buffet for my inner critic. As a new author, I had to work my way past it. (Happily, the book has found its audience of people who do, in fact, want to read it. Now, I find the episode both funny and educational.)

The story of that negative review appears in my most recent book, Get the Word Out, in a chapter on “Dealing with Detractors.”

I thought long and hard about including it. Would sharing this terrible review undermine my authority as a writer and author?

To put this in context, I fully endorse the idea of showing up as a fallible human being in your writing. There’s a chapter titled “Credibility, Humanity, and Humility” in Writing to Be Understood. I understand and preach the theory.

But advising others and acting yourself are two different things.

The story earned its place because it might help other writers learn to deal with the negative feedback they are bound to encounter. I chose to serve the reader.

And people respond to that story—they reach out and let me know it resonated with them.

In this seemingly one-way, black-and-white medium of a book, showing up as an imperfect human being makes makes a meaningful connection.

How do you show up in your writing?

Are you hiding behind an authorial voice, worried about showing up as an expert? Or does the reader get some sense of who you are and how you have struggled or failed? Every author must decide how much to show up in their writing.

Memoir writers have no choice—they are writing about their own experiences, and have to show up as real, or the memoir will be boring. But business writers, authors of prescriptive nonfiction (how-to), bloggers, journalists… most nonfiction authors face a conundrum.

How many of your own stories should you include? How much are you comfortable sharing? Which ones are wise to include?

Everyone will make different decisions, and that’s fine. But remember that writing is a form of human connection.

If you want to connect deeply with others, you must show up yourself.

The story comes full circle

A BookLife Prize critic recently weighed in on that most recent book, Get the Word Out. And in the critic’s report, they cited that story about the bad review, effectively defanging that first one in the best of all possible ways:

“At times when the author opens up with personal stories, such as sharing the pain of receiving a bad review, making that experience relatable, comical, and painfully human, the book moves beyond prescriptive nonfiction, and the reader receives not only information but connection.”

It’s all about making a connection, whether you’re writing or reading.

Will someone think less of me for sharing that terrible review? Perhaps. But that’s a small price to pay for connecting with readers.

Explore Further

Read the full BookLife Prize critic’s report for Get the Word Out.

Check out Get the Word Out

Read Writing Isn’t a Monologue

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Nobody Owes Us Attention

I have a quirky book problem. Once I get through the first few chapters of a book, I feel obligated to keep going, even if I’ve entirely lost interest.

I start skimming, flipping through pages—doing anything so that I feel like I reached the end legitimately. It seems absurd even as I do it, but if I page through to the last page, then I’ve met some kind of obligation and given the author the benefit of the doubt.

Sometimes I can’t even do that. My Kindle is cluttered with the relics of books that I cannot quite delete. Let’s not even talk about my bookshelves.

Maybe it’s the sunk cost fallacy—I’ve read this far, I will have wasted this time if I stop.

Maybe it’s too much conscientiousness. Abandoning a book is like returning a pet to a shelter. I picked it up, I ought to finish it—so says some inner voice.

How about you?

What do you do if you’re bored with a book 50 pages in? Do you keep reading out of a sense of obligation, or put it down and do something else?

Unless you have to read it for a book club, a class assignment, or your job, you probably move on.

Think about this the next time you’re writing something. Most readers aren’t like me, hanging on until the last page, always looking for one more path into a work.

In most cases, the reader has no obligation to finish, much less start, anything you write, whether it’s a book, a blog post, or an email.

What We Learn in School Misleads Us

When we learn to write in grade school, our teachers offer careful guidance on everything we turn in. Through high school, they continue to read our papers with great attention. (Teachers everywhere, I salute you.)

This is how we improve. Those red marks on our returned papers may distress us, but they signal that the reader was paying attention.

As we continue in higher education and professors and teaching assistants in college wade through our prose, we learn to rely on that committed reader. We know that someone has to read what we’ve written to grade it. In fact, we’re paying for that grade, indirectly. They owe us that much.

Once you leave that environment, no one owes you that level of attention.

If they wanted to train writers for the real world, professors would include another grade—how willingly they read it.

The Reader Owes Us Nothing (Yet)

Start with this assumption: The reader owes you nothing. Not their attention, not their focus and deep thought, nothing.

Joseph Jaffe and I had a conversation about this recently on his wonderful CoronaTV series. His response to my statement that the reader owes us nothing really nails it:

“The best place to begin is with that profound statement, ‘The reader owes us nothing.’ If you begin from that place, you can only benefit, you can only gain. You can never detract. You can never get into negative territory if that is your base and your starting point.”

Joseph Jaffe

No one owes you, or your words, attention—but you can earn it.

Earning the Reader’s Attention

Earn attention by taking the reader’s perspective (cognitive empathy) and:

Offering valuable informationEngaging their curiosityMaking the reading experience enjoyable

The more of these you can do, the more attention you will earn.

(Watch the one-minute clip below for this conversation.)

Related Content

Watch the entire CoronaTV segment on Youtube:

Read this post about the Servant Authorship Mindset.

Read Three Reasons It’s Hard to Write for your Audience.

The post Nobody Owes Us Attention appeared first on Anne Janzer.

Amazon Decoded by David Gaughran (2nd Edition)

As an indie author, I have a silent business partner that is wealthy and powerful, sometimes high-handed, and occasionally mysterious.

That partner is Amazon.

David Gaughran is one of my go-to sources for insight into Amazon. His advice has helped me better understand how to use Amazon in my book launches and promotions. So when he published a second edition of his book Amazon Decoded, I got it right away, even though I’d read the first edition. And I’m glad I did—the second edition is filled with much more detail.

Authors have many theories about Amazon—some of them crazy and conspiratorial. Some speak with confidence about a “magic number” of reviews you need before everything happens. Others talk about Amazon’s hidden agendas. Most of it is pure speculation.

David Gaughran offers solid, actionable advice, grounded in research, experimentation, and common sense. If you’re an author, this book is an excellent investment of your time and attention.

“Why should I read a book about Amazon?”

Let’s answer that question using the author’s own words:

“If you understand how the system works, you can encourage Amazon to recommend your books more frequently. Not only that, if you also understand what makes books visible in the Kindle Store, you can make simple tweaks to increase the footprint of your book in Amazon’s system, meaning that more readers will discover it when browsing for new reads.”

David Gaughran

Here’s my perspective. Having a better understanding of how Amazon works will help you get your book into the hands of the people who value it. Amazon can help you embrace the goals of servant authorship (serving people with your book) by putting your book in front of its audience.

The Geeky Goodness Within

If you’ve been publishing books on Amazon for a while, this book should trigger a number of “Aha!” moments. You’ll understand why some things happen or what you’ve been seeing.

Part one explains what’s happening in the Kindle store, and the mysterious issue of sales rank.

Part two is all about metadata, which sounds wonky but is definitely worth spending time to get right. (Bonus: there’s no end date on tinkering with a book’s metadata. It’s always worth revisiting.)

Visibility on Amazon is the subject of part three. Here Gaughran demystifies the difference between the best-seller list and the popularity list, also-boughts, and much more.

Part four covers ebook distribution and offers perspectives on that troubling question: should you stay exclusive to Amazon or publish your ebook in other places as well?

Part five is all about promotions—you know, discounts and sales. These can play an important role in helping your book find its audience.

In the last section, he puts it all together in sample promotion plans.

The book is rich in geeky detail. If you’re like me, you may have to take breaks in reading to go browse Amazon with fresh eyes.

My Take-aways

After reading this second edition, I have a much better understanding of KDP Select and Kindle Unlimited. I’m a “wide” author myself—and I’m not talking about my girth, thank you very much, but about making books available through multiple retailers. Even so, I benefit from understanding what Kindle Unlimited readers see and how this affects my books.

As a bonus, Gaughran writes with self-deprecating humor. For example:

I have an analytical mindset, I’m told—which I think is a polite way of telling me that I have the natural empathy of a dehumidifier, but it’s also handy for figuring out how systems work

David Gaughran

From a nonfiction, explanatory writing perspective, he keeps the tone light and entertaining while clearly explaining algorithms and metadata. That’s a fine example of writing to be understood!

Caveats: As the subtitle indicates, the book focuses primarily on Kindle books rather than print. And parts of the book are aimed at fiction writers, including most of the sample launch and promotion plans.

That said, there’s still plenty of wisdom for nonfiction authors and those who rely on print sales. Read it and become wiser about reaching your audience with Amazon’s help.

Other Resources

Find Amazon Decoded on Amazon or on Bookshop.

Hurry over to David’s website and sign up for his email list.

If you want more visual guidance than reading a book, join my webinar on February 26 on Navigating Amazon as an Author. It’s for authors of all kinds. We’ll walk through several of the concepts in the book. We’ll also cover some of the Amazon services for authors, including author pages, affiliate codes, and more.

The post Amazon Decoded by David Gaughran (2nd Edition) appeared first on Anne Janzer.

Does Jargon Make You Look Insecure?

Conspicuous consumption has a bad reputation, for good reason. It’s about relying on flash rather than substance, status symbols rather than earned admiration.

We can often tell when someone is trying to impress us with flash. Most of the time, we lose respect for that person.

According to a study into the use of jargon titled “Compensatory Conspicuous Communication,” the same thing may happen when people use jargon in their speech or writing. The research suggests that people sometimes use jargon as “a communicative form of conspicuous consumption.”

The authors of the study start by offering one of the best academic definitions of jargon that I’ve seen [italics are mine]:

Jargon is “socially learned words or expressions used by a particular profession or specialized group, which are used in place of more broadly accessible and less formal alternatives, and are difficult for outsiders to understand.”

Zachariah C. Brown, Eric M. Anicich, and Adam D. Galinsky

A word or phrase can be jargon if others don’t understand it and if there’s a simpler way to describe it.

Why, then, do we turn to those words?

Jargon as a status symbol

Sometimes, we use this language by accident. We forget what it’s like to not know what the words mean. (That’s the Curse of Knowledge in action.)

But sometimes people use jargon to signal belonging to an in-group. If you know the jargon, you’re in. And industries rich in jargon often have high status.

The less secure people are in their status and belonging, the more likely they are to revert to acronyms, complex sentences, and hard-to-understand jargon. This happens even when they write or speak to people outside their industry, who are not part of the “in-crowd” signaled by the language.

Jargon is the designer handbag of language

The researchers conducted several tests to compare the use of jargon by people in low- or high-status situations. For example:

They collected thesis titles from candidates from low- and high-status graduate schools and analyzed them for complexity and acronyms.In another study, they invited MBA students to participate in pitch competitions. Then they manipulated the students’ sense of status and noted whether they chose descriptions rich in jargon.In live conversations about arcane topics, researchers tinkered with the participants’ perceived status and analyzed the words they used.

In each case, they found that people in lower-status situations were more likely to choose acronyms and jargon.

This report also includes a candidate for the understatement of the week, about academic writing:

“Academics have long been critiqued for using less readable language than may be necessary to communicate their ideas.”

Your ten-dollar words and insider acronyms may signal your own insecurities.

Are you focused on the reader, or yourself?

The study doesn’t offer a proven remedy, but I have a suggestion: focus on serving the needs of your audience.

Yes, this is yet another case in which to apply servant authorship.

When you worry about broadcasting or inflating your own status (whether consciously or not), you are more likely to reach for acronyms and specialized vocabulary.

This tendency presents two dangers:

Outsiders are likely to feel left out when they encounter unfamiliar terms.Insiders may suspect or sense that you’re trying too hard.

Jargon is a terrible tool for demonstrating your status or expertise. Let your bio communicate your expertise.

Earn status and respect from the strength of your ideas and the crystal clarity of your expression.

Related Reading

A Servant Authorship Mindset: Why It Matters

How and Why to Filter the Jargon

The post Does Jargon Make You Look Insecure? appeared first on Anne Janzer.

Hope and Process

Watching the presidential inauguration last week, I was struck by the comfort I found in the ceremony itself.

The event moved forward through a predictable process rooted in the past. People sang, gave speeches, and administered oaths in a predetermined order. Then the work of the new administration started with process as well, as Vice President Harris swore in senators and President Biden signed executive orders.

While many people, myself among them, greet the new administration with a sense of hope, the hard days ahead will define this term.

Hope and process are necessary companions.

Whenever we start anything major, we’re always optimistic for a great outcome—whether it’s a job, a new relationship, or a writing project. But the success of these longer endeavors depends on our actions.

Without action, hope is an empty promise.

Hope and promise reinforce each other

Hope gets us started. It may galvanize us into taking the first steps. But hope is like a fast-twitch muscle, easily overwhelmed with fatigue. It rarely carries us all the way to the end we envision when the path ahead of us is long.

That’s where process comes in—as a steadfast foundation for action, even when hope falters.

When hope fades, the key is to cling doggedly on the process, like the tired hiker focused on how many steps remain to the next landmark, then the next one.

Process keeps us moving forward when our stores of hope are depleted. It gets us where we want to go.

Process in writing

Maybe you want to write a blog consistently, or to create a collection of short stories, or perhaps write a book. These are major writing projects. You may start with high hopes. But I guarantee there will be a day when it seems like the road ahead is too long, or you simply don’t feel the pull that day, or life distracts you.

Nearly every large project reaches this point.

Process is your steady companion, slow but reliable. Show up every day, even on the days you don’t feel like it.

When you commit to the process, something remarkable usually happens: you look around and see how far you’ve come. You’ve written three months of weekly blogs. You’ve written 10,000 or 20,000 words of your book.

The progress gives you a new infusion of hope, and fresh incentive to forge ahead.

Hope and process create a virtuous cycle.

That’s why I harp on about understanding your writing process, and creating a pattern for when and how you work, whether or not you feel inspired.

Amanda Gorman took the world by storm with her recitation at the inauguration. I’m a new fan. Here’s what Gorman says about creativity (from Michelle Woo’s article):

Rarely does a writer say “I’m gonna have a great idea” and it comes. Instead you have to wait lovingly, preparing a place for inspiration to strike in your life. It’s like tending soil, though you might not have seeds yet, so that when they do arrive, they can thrive.

Amanda Gorman

To tend the soil as a writer, show up and write. Hope for inspiration, but stick to your process. Do the work.

Tend your writing process with hope for great things.

Related content

For a deep dive into the process, see my book The Writer’s Process.

Read the blog post Fear Freezes, Hope Motivates

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The Story Advantage: A Book Review

As someone who practically ran screaming from fiction writing in college, the idea of telling effective stories always seemed to belong to someone else, not me. For many years, I resisted working on my storytelling skills by clinging solidly to the idea that I was a nonfiction writer.

But I started wearing down several years ago. And after researching the cognitive impact of story for Writing to Be Understood: What Works and Why, I’ve changed my tune altogether. Story plays a critical role in nonfiction writing, content marketing, and even public discourse.

After all of those years of resisting, I need to strengthen my story skills. So I was delighted to encounter L.J. Bloom’s new book The Story Advantage.

It’s written for a business audience, including people who may not feel comfortable spinning stories, yet who really should know how to use them.

Bloom is the real deal—someone who collects and honors and delivers stories. In other words, she’s the type of person who once made me feel intimidated about sharing a tale.

But she’s also a huge advocate for the role of story, and she’ll make you one, too. She writes:

“It is time for a storytelling that serves the greater good. Storytelling that reflects kindness and generosity. Storytelling that represents hope for a better world and a place that can nurture the next generation to higher purpose and consciousness. This is the path forward.”

Writing or Telling Stories

While Bloom tells stories in person, much of the advice applies well to those of us who write.

Specifically, she suggests that you plan your stories first. No matter how you deliver them, you should:

Understand your audience.Be clear on your intention.Identify the outcomes you want.Define your message. Know the resistance.

That advice will sound familiar to all marketing copywriters. Planning is key to creating content of almost any type. And for a story, when you want to really bring your audience along with you, you must understand the audience well.

Advice Mixed With Inspiration

Each chapter opens with a simple story, illustrating the power of a story told simply and well.

The book also offers a simple, incredibly useful definition of story to encourage you to get started:

“Story is when something happens, and it is described vividly and with emotion.”

That’s all you need to get started.

Bloom blends advice, research and story to inform and inspire you on your path. In addition to constructing the stories, she’ll help you think about how you deliver them when speaking. These are valuable skills to develop.

Reading this book has inspired me to work not only on how I write stories, but also how I tell them.

How will it inspire you?

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What Real Writers Look Like

The Russian poet Pushkin. Once, I was a poet, too.

For a few years in my late 30s, I was a poet.

I’d never really written poetry until then. In college, as an English literature major, I took the bare minimum of poetry courses, if you don’t count Shakespeare. (The Milton course was anything but paradise.)

After college, I went straight into writing about technology. If you don’t count lyrics of songs and arias, my poetry exposure was pretty light to this point.

Signing up for a Continuing Education course on writing poetry as an adult was a stretch. But the course wasn’t graded, so I figured I’d try something different.

Once enrolled in the course, with a regular thrum of assignments, I enjoyed not only writing the poems, but also how the process affected me.

Poetry became a new lens for reality—a filter through which to examine my life.

I started noticing the sounds of language, relishing the rhythms of syllables and clash of consonants. Occasionally, a full opening line of a poem arrived in my head like a gift from beyond.

It was such fun that a few of us from the course formed a writing group and continued meeting and sharing poems, just to keep the groove going.

When I wrote poems, I lived in the world as a poet.

Here’s the thing: I never thought of myself as a poet before that time. I didn’t start writing poems at a young age, nor did I spend all of my hours reading poetry. No one would look at my life and say, “Oh, she’s a real poet.”

But I was a poet for those few years, because I was writing poetry.

I’m thankful for my brief time as a poet. It added a beautiful texture to my life. Those poems offer a window into my world at that time.

That’s why I get upset when I hear people say that you need to be a real writer to try a book, or that if you’re not completely driven to write, you shouldn’t bother.

The idea that some people are born to be writers is a fallacy—and a harmful one at that.

The Naturalness Bias

No one is born a writer. I have yet to see a baby or even a toddler produce great prose. It’s always a developed skill.

Yet it’s a favorite excuse for why we’re not trying something: I’m not a poet, I’m not a writer, I’m not a <fill-in-the-blank.>

When we look at the people who are expert at something, who have put in years of intentional practice and effort, it’s easy to think that they have a natural gift, because they are so far ahead of us. But that’s a damaging belief, for us and for them.

Believing in natural talent discourages people from developing skills that they might enjoy (like my poetry). If I’d clung to the idea that I wasn’t a poet, I wouldn’t have tried.

This mindset also minimizes the effort of the expert and skillful.

Angela Duckworth writes about the costs of this belief, which she refers to as the naturalness bias.

“The ‘naturalness bias’ is a hidden prejudice against those who’ve achieved what they have because they worked for it, and a hidden preference for those whom we think arrived at their place because they’re naturally talented.”

Angela Duckworth, Grit

We want to believe that people who achieve great things got there by talent, because it lets us off the hook to try.

Sure, language comes more easily to some people. Telling stories even seems like a natural skill to those who have spent their lives doing it. But you don’t have to have spent your life writing to be a writer.

Some people believe that to write a book, you must be driven by an irrepressible demon. In his excellent book Perennial Best Seller, Ryan Holiday shared this quote from George Orwell:

“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.”

George Orwell

Well, heck. Not only do we need to be born writers, we need to be tormented as well.

I reject that idea. Just because some tormented souls are great writers doesn’t mean all writers must be tormented souls.

What To Do If You Don’t Feel Like a Real Writer

If you need to get out from under the naturalness bias, here are a few suggestions.

Read Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe’s first novel, published right before he turned 60, or Stones of Ibarra, Harriet Doerr’s first book published when she was 74. Is it too late for you?Stop thinking about yourself and focus on the people you want to serve with your writing. Is this about you, or about them?Most of all, write. Then write some more. Do it all the time.

Write a poem every week, and you’re a poet.

Work on a book, and you’re an author. You cannot be a published author until you are first an author.

Starting writing anything, consistently and with a purpose, and you’re a writer.

It doesn’t matter if other people would grant you the label. What matters is that you take the action. Do the work to improve and build your skills.

As long as you’re doing the work, you’re a writer. A real one.

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width=\"150\" height=\"50\" \/><\/a>\r\nWrite much? Me, too. I've been delving into how to optimize my writing practices for creativity and productivity, and I'm sharing what I've learned.\r\n\r\nSign up to get once-a-week posts by email.","desc_el":"div","class":"","show_desc":"0","desc_pos":"none","desc_text":"","conditional":""},"6":{"honeypot_save":""},"7":{"label":"Text","default_value":"<a href=\"http:\/\/annejanzer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/emaillogowp.png\"><img class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-3252\" src=\"http:\/\/annejanzer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/emaillogowp-150x50.png\" alt=\"email logo wp\" width=\"150\" height=\"50\" \/><\/a><em><strong>Want to read more\u00a0posts like this?<\/strong><\/em> Sign up to receive writing posts by email, every other week.\u00a0You'll also receive a guide to overcoming common barriers to writing.","desc_el":"div","class":"","show_desc":"0","desc_pos":"none","desc_text":"","conditional":""},"8":{"label":"First 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Writing as Planting Trees

 





What I Learned from My Top Posts of 2020

At the end of the year, many of us get retrospective, looking at the accomplishments and lessons of the past year. 2020 taught us a great deal, much of which we will be processing for years. But in this post, I want to reflect on a writing lesson that has been its parting gift. 

Over the year, I published more than 40 writing-related blog posts and book reviews on my website. It seemed like a good idea to look back and learn which were most effective or had the biggest impact.

Impact is tough to measure, so let’s settle for something simpler: traffic. For that, I refer to Google Analytics data on my website traffic and behavior: which posts did people land on and read most often? 

Here’s what I found.

Google’s Favorite Posts in 2020

These are the top ten posts on AnneJanzer.com, in order of their online popularity. Look at the list and then we’ll dive into the lesson of it.

1. Defining tone, style, and voice in writing

How to Talk about Tone, Style, and Voice in Writing (from 2018) explains a key concept from one chapter in my book Writing to Be Understood. Apparently, many people need those definitions untangled.

2. Taking sides in the great email or text debate

When you need to check in with a colleague, should you send a text or an email? This timeless problem is the subject of Email or Text—Why It Matters. First published in 2019, its popularity in 2020 makes sense. Apparently, with everyone working from home, we’re all puzzled by whether it’s better to text or email our colleagues.

3. Nonfiction writers tell true stories

This post Stories and Fiction, Facts and Truth (from 2019) talks about the importance of using stories in nonfiction writing—based on concepts from another chapter in Writing to Be Understood. In a year in which we are all trying to navigate truth, the popularity of this post makes sense.

4. Shrinking attention spans

The (Not Really) Shrinking Reader Attention Span (first published in 2018) debunks the commonly-cited research about people now having the attention span of a goldfish, but then goes on to suggest that you not overload your readers’ attention spans. I suspect that the goldfish study, even being debunked, gives the post its staying power.

5. Using metaphors in nonfiction

Metaphors in Nonfiction: Unexpected Truths (from 2017) talks about the cognitive power of metaphors. It’s timeless advice for writers of all kinds.

Posts #6-10—More Writing Advice and Book Reviews

The rest of the top ten run the gamut from book reviews to writing in the workplace to nonfiction writing:

What Makes You Curious? (from 2017)

Why Writing is Like Baking Bread (from 2016)

The Revision Process in the Workplace (from 2016)

Pay What You Want Pricing— A review (from 2018) of Tom Morkes’ book on pricing

Writing to Persuade: A Book Review — A 2019 review of Trish Hall’s excellent book

The Deeper Lesson about Patience

Did you notice something? None of those posts were first published in 2020. All were from earlier—two from 2016.

Writers and bloggers can draw many lessons from these data:

Unless your topic area changes quickly, most online content has a long shelf-life. Something you write this year may be helping people several years from now.
Generosity rebounds. Book reviews tend to be among my better performing posts (two made my top ten.)
Patience is golden.

Of course, impact isn’t measured in traffic. You may write something that has a major impact on a small number of people, and that’s more significant than thousands of people scanning.

My Favorite Posts of 2020

What about this year’s batch of writing posts? None of them ended up in the top ten for traffic, but that’s okay. I’m planting seeds for slow-growing trees.

Here are a few of the posts from 2020 that I hope will grow to cover a lot of ground.

Finding Your Writing Pace
What Do You Amplify?
The Truth Needs a Boost
Adopting a Writing Mindset
The Truth About Outlines
Finding a Writing Voice that Fits
Servant Authorship Mindset: Why It Matters

Let me know if you have a different favorite post from 2020!

My question for you:

What trees did you plant in 2020? Which ones will you plant and tend to in 2021?

Writing is a long game.

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width=\"150\" height=\"50\" \/><\/a>\r\nWrite much? 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Fear Freezes, Hope Motivates

This year more than most, fear has been an unwanted guest in our homes—intruding at the dinner table, interrupting our sleep in the early mornings, and inserting itself into conversations with friends and family. Fear is an uninvited companion whispering in our ears as we pass others on the street or pick up a few things at the grocery store.

Fear has many sources: the virus, election uncertainty, wildfires threats, economic worries. The content of its conversation may vary, but most of us have seen and heard more of fear this year than we care to.

This isn’t a post about fear, though, it’s about writing. Because one thing fear does is to shut us down.

The freeze factor

“Fear freezes, hope motivates.“

I can’t remember where I first read that insight among in cognitive-science based reading. Maybe it was in Writing to Persuade by Trish Hall. Perhaps it was in Jonah Berger’s The Catalyst. There’s consensus among those who write to persuade others—lead with hope if you want people to take action.

If you lead with a fear-based message, it’s difficult to get people to take action. Look at the fear-based messaging around climate change. It’s not having much of an effect.

On the other hand, if you want people to do nothing, fear is a powerful message. We’ve all seen this strategy in political messaging.

We need to take the same perspective when navigating our own fear. Because we have some degree of choice over what we pay attention to.

Reinforcing hope by writing

Writing is an optimistic act. We believe we can reach someone and our words will make a difference or have an impact. Writing to serve others gives us a purpose. But motivating ourselves to write takes effort.

If we spend too much time with fear, it’s hard to write.

When we feel fearful and make ourselves do the work anyway, our actions can alter our own beliefs. We can take control, even if just over a tiny corner of our lives.

If you’re feeling fearful, try writing. Picture something that you want to move toward and write your way there, whether it’s working on that novel or spinning out a hopeful vision in your journal. Take the reins and write.

Fear only wins when we shut down.

Related posts

The Servant Authorship Mindset

Fear vs. Flow: Writing in Quarantine

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