Jared Dees's Blog: The Latest from Jared Dees, page 24

Create a Community Around Your Content

Hal Elrod wrote an inspiring book titled The Miracle Morning Routine. More importantly, he built a community around the ideas in the book. He sent an email to his email list yesterday that I found really interesting. Here is an excerpt:

I shared my two favorite approaches to meditating that have been adding a lot of value to my life… I made a public commitment that I would start doing Facebook Live once per week… I invited people to commit to taking action on one fear that’s been holding them...

Your Content Should Stand for Something

If you learn about how to do content marketing, you will find a lot of articles, videos, podcasts, etc. that focus on how to get more followers, fans, website traffic, conversions, sales, etc. You will find all kinds of technical information about how to get the most impressions and rankings. The thing most of these articles miss, however, is the advantage of creating content that actually stands for something.

There is a great profile on the outdoors company, REI, in Social Media Examiner, w...

Prolific is Better than Perfect

I am so grateful for Benjamin Hardy’s article about his new culture wall, which Gaping Void created for him.

Number 14 in his list of pictures is by far my favorite. It summarizes exactly my philosophy when it comes to making it as an artist and an author:

(Source)

“It’s better to be prolific than perfect.” — Joe Polish

Here is a quick practical application of this principle from Ray Bradbury:

Write 52 short stories in a year rather than one novel. Write one short story a week.

“I defy you,”...

Find a Great Homepage and Copy It

Steal like an artist.

Find a website with a great homepage and copy it.

I don’t mean copy it exactly and I’m not even talking about the design.

Find a headline and a call-to-action and then turn it into a template for your own work.

For example, Bryan Harris’s homepage for Videofruit gets a 10% conversion rate. It looks like this:

Turn that headline into a template:

Want AUDIENCE to ACTION from you?

If so, you need a OFFER. I’ll show you how to OUTCOME. Just click on the button below.

Start...

Two Reasons to Want to be a Writer (according to Orson Scott Card)

In the postcript of the audiobook version of Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card shared the two reasons anyone decides to become a writer.

You read something amazing and say, “Oh, wow, I want to be able to write like that.” You read something awful and say, “If that got published, then I can write.”

The more I think about this the more I think he is exactly right.

Here are just a couple of examples that come to mind:

Example of #1: 

When Charlie Holmberg (The Paper Magician) was 13 she watched a...

What Made Bridge to Terabithia a Success?

I just finished reading Bridge to Terabithia. Someone had left a copy of it in our Little Free Library and it was on my list of children’s books to read and research as a writer.

I got the audiobook version on Overdrive and listened to the book while doing chores around the house. At the end of the audiobook there was a short interview with the author, Katherine Paterson, and her son David Paterson.

The book was written for (about) her son whose best friend died when he was only a boy. The st...

Louis Martin: How to Raise a Saint

Today is the feast day of Sts. Louis and Zelie Martin, the parents of St. Therese of Lisieux, who is well known for her autobiography, A Story of a Soul.

Like Louis, I am a father of only daughters so I payed very close attention to Therese’s description of her “Papa” in her autobiography. There is one scene and description that I think of often when I am at church or in prayer with my kids. She writes:

If St. Teresa was mentioned [during the homily at Mass], my Father would bend down and whi...

Instagram Replaced Blogging

Almost ten years ago I started a blog. It was a new concept. There were people who built an audience from scratch and had thousands or millions of readers of their blogs.

I started one as a way to publish resources for religion teachers. It was free. There weren’t any editors to convince to publish my work.

Social media was around at the time, of course, but there weren’t many people using it for business or as their primary platform. This was in the days before Facebook offered business page...

The Purpose of the Morning Preview

I have a long checklist of things to do immediately when I wake up in the morning during my Morning Preview, but when you break it down to its most basic elements, the purpose is waking myself up with a reminder of my priorities.

I start the day in prayer and try to make sure the first thing I read comes from the Bible (vs. email, articles, social media posts, etc.). I do this while my coffee is brewing.

Then I head to the basement and turn my focus towards work. If I had to narrow each step...

7 Lessons for Writers from Make Your Bed by Admiral William H. McRaven

On a five mile run last week, I listened to the entire book (1.75 speed on the Overdrive app), Make Your Bed, by Admiral William H. McRaven.

As a writer, here are seven lessons I learned while listening to the book:

1. Make your bed literally and figuratively.

Make your bed in the morning. It is a small task, but the first of many little things to give you a sense of accomplishment throughout the day.

Also:

Write and publish something every day. Even a tweet will do.

I’ve been publishing some...