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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Nicolas Cole
Read between
March 13 - March 23, 2022
“The internet is a fad, blogging is a trend, and real journalism will never die,” my college professor said.
Notoriously, human beings spend an awful lot of time imagining the big achievement we want for ourselves at the end of the journey, but struggle tremendously getting through the beginning—where we suck.
By writing online, you elevate yourself. And when you elevate yourself, you open new doors of opportunity.
If you are a company with the resources to build and scale your website into an industry publication, you should start a blog. And if you are a solopreneur who wants to “own” a category or niche by creating a directory of knowledge, you should start a blog. But if you don’t fit within either of these two categories, then blogging is not your best path forward.
Again, the difference here comes down to what you want to get out of your writing. Do you want to build a company and brand, making money selling ads, products, and/or services? Then a website and “blog” makes sense. But if you enjoy writing and want to build a personal brand, position yourself as an authentic voice in your industry, and share your thoughts, stories, opinions, and insights at scale, then do not start a blog.
In my mind, this approach seemed backward: why would a writer wait until the moment they were ready to publish their product to start building their audience? The more logical path forward would be to start writing online, build an audience, learn what people actually wanted from you, and THEN launch your product. So that’s what I did.
This is why I tell everyone—whether you’re an aspiring author or the CEO of a public company—that before you do anything, before you write your book, before you launch your product, before you think about “positioning yourself,” you need to write online.
I was learning, growing, and publishing on the internet. Anytime I would write something online, I would receive immediate feedback—in the form of words (“I totally agree! Amazing perspective,” or, “You’re an idiot. Go die in a fire,”) and in the form of data (Views, Likes, Shares, Upvotes, Comments, etc.). Without even realizing it, I would then take that data and use it to inform my next piece of writing. I would double-down on topics that attracted more viewership. I would retell stories that had prompted people to Comment. I would adjust my headlines and the format of my articles based on
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Practicing In Public is what separates aspiring writers from professional writers.
Deep down, they really, really don’t believe in their own skills, and so they want to create the perfect scenario that tells the world, “This is someone worth listening to,” because they haven’t actually gone through the hard work of figuring that out for themselves yet. They don’t know if they’re someone worth listening to—because they haven’t put their skills to the test.
But the truth is, the real reason most people aren’t successful writing online has very little to do with all the bells and whistles that surround the writing. Their biggest problem is the writing itself. They don’t understand how the game works.
Successful writers play the game of Online Writing consciously. Unsuccessful writers play the game unconsciously—and then wonder why they aren’t succeeding.
However, if your goal is to be better tomorrow than you are today, you have to play the game consciously. You have to start opening your eyes to the way the game is played, who your competition is, and what they’re doing that is capturing (and keeping) people’s attention—so that you can do the same.
*There is another strategy here, and that’s to not compete within an existing category but create an entirely new category of your own. However, before we get into breaking the rules, it’s important to learn the rules of the game, first.
This is what makes writing online a strategy game. Think of every category as its own playing field with its own rules. What’s considered kosher in one category may seem completely unconventional in another.
When people read online, they don’t actually “read.” What they do is skim. Browse. Scroll. They let their eyes gloss over the words, and if something compelling catches their eye in the first two, five, maybe ten seconds (a word, a subhead, a phrase), then they’ll stop skimming and start reading. But you better believe as soon as momentum in the writing starts to slow, they’re gone. They’ll swipe back to their social media feed and be neck deep in Memeville in a millisecond.
But the real reason it “wins” is because its Rate of Revelation is so much higher. Every single sentence advances the “story” to the next main point. And on the internet, this level of velocity is crucial to hooking and keeping a reader’s attention.
The inverse rule of “Specificity is the Secret,” is “The Broader You Are, The More Confusing You Are.”
It’s one thing to say, “I write about life,” and it’s another to say, “I write about lifestyle habits for people in their 20s struggling to find their passion.” A lot of aspiring writers shy away from naming their writing that specifically, because they fear putting themselves in a box. But especially when you’re first starting out online, a box is exactly what you want. You want people to know where to put you on the bookshelf in their mind.
Notice, the more specific I get, the more I am forcing potential readers to make a choice. Either this is going to be exactly what they’re looking for, or they’re going to know right away I’m not the right writer for them. In addition, the more specific I am, the more I as a writer also gain clarity around what it is I’m actually writing about—
The real question you should never stop asking yourself is, “Could this be more specific?” Because the more specific you can be, the more likely you are to resonate with your target reader MORE than your competition.
Bio: “I like cats, coffee, and watching Netflix,” is not an effective bio. Instead of trying to be clever, tell people who you are, what category your writing is in, and what makes you “credible.”
Grammar: There is no faster way to lose credibility with a reader than to have writing littered with mistakes.
Organization of thought: If your writing reads smoothly, a reader is going to assume “you know what you’re doing.” If it’s formatted well, they’re going to assume “you’ve been writing for a while.” These are subtle signals of credibility in the form of expertise.
You might have captured their attention—but you certainly didn’t keep it.
There are an infinite number of credibility signals that exist on the internet. Unfortunately, most writers don’t use these signals to their advantage. They have them, or they very easily could have them, they just choose not to leverage them. As a result, they don’t “appear” very credible at all.
Categories are created at unlikely intersections, spotted by writers with an intimate understanding of one or multiple sub-categories.
Once you’ve created a new and DIFFERENT category in your mind, you must then communicate the differences of that category to your audience. This is what’s called your “Point of View.” Your POV is the way you see the world, the unique vantage point that allows everyone else to understand your perspective.
“If this is the category I’m interested in, then who should I be reading? Who is the #1 writer here?” And if you’re the one who created and educated them on this new category, who are they going to see as the expert? That’s right. You.
All of my most popular Quora answers followed a similar methodology. 800,000+ views: How to become more confident. 783,000+ views: How to stop being average. 507,000+ views: What it feels like to go from unattractive to attractive. 425,000+ views: A stranger I met once that changed my life forever. 412,000+ views: Why having everything you want won’t make you happy.
Writing online means tolerating the fact that pieces you spend hours slaving over are going to go unnoticed, while pieces you write in twenty minutes are going to land on the front page of Reddit and go viral (which is what happened to me).
“The number of hours I spend consuming should never equal or exceed the number of hours I spend creating.”
Yet, that’s where I was in my life when I wrote that. I was 24 years old. I was trying to “prove” I knew how to write. And on that day, in that one Quora answer, I captured “me” in that moment of time.
There are five types of writing on the internet. Form #1: Actionable Guide Form #2: Opinion Form #3: Curated List Form #4: Story Form #5: Credible Talking Head
In order to create the single best resource, you do not need to write a book. In fact, I have always argued that length is a poor judge of value
I’m interested in (as a reader) is 1) which books, and 2) a quick summary of what each book is about so I can determine which one I want to read first. Anything beyond that is unnecessary, and not why a reader is reading this list in the first place. Writers go wrong by trying to have one without the other. They optimize for speed, but sacrifice substance—or they optimize for substance, but sacrifice speed.
Techniques for making your Stories “better” than the competition (in addition to all the other techniques described above) are: “Better” Openers: If everyone else is taking their sweet time getting to the point, blow right past them and start writing at the moment of conflict or achievement. (Every single sentence you write online, you are fighting for the reader’s attention. If your story “gets better” four paragraphs later, delete your first four paragraphs. You don’t need them.) “Better” Transitions: If everyone else is writing long-winded, overly descriptive, and slow-as-molasses prose, do
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Why people read certain things on the internet and not others is often a reflection of its headline.
Your headline isn’t just a headline. Your headline is, quite literally, a micro-version of your entire Actionable Guide, Opinion, Curated List, Story, or Credible Talking Head monologue.
The way I write and rewrite headlines is I first try to say whatever it is I’m trying to say, in as many words as I need to say it. “The 8 Things You Should Do On A Daily Basis In Order To Become The Best Person You Can Possibly Become, No Matter What Obstacles Are In Your Way”
PROMISE more? What else does the reader want? What are their emotional wants, needs, and desires related to this specific problem or piece of advice? “The 8 Things You Should Do On A Daily Basis In Order To Get More Done, Achieve Your Goals, And Start Living Your Best Life”
Then, once I feel like I have clarity around the PROMISE, I look for words that are still too vague. I want the reader’s eyes to skim my headline and latch on to two or three words that speak directly to the categories of their interests. “The 8 Things You Should Do On A Daily Basis To Be More Productive, Achieve Success, And Gain True Financial Freedom”
Lastly, you always want to be thinking about what “POWER phrases” you can add to your headlines to clarify the urgency and importance of whatever it is you’re writing about.
For example, instead of saying “7 Ways…” you could say, “7 Little-Known Ways” or “7 Small But Powerful Ways.” These tiny tweaks are what tell readers that what they’re about to read is different from all the other articles on the same topic—and can also hint at a more meaningful or impactful PROMISE.
Right away in the introduction, your job is to answer all three of the reader’s preliminary questions: What is this about? Is this for me? What are you PROMISING and how confident am I that you’re going to deliver on that PROMISE?
In 1/3/1, you have one strong opening sentence, three description sentences, and then one conclusion sentence.
The last sentence of the 1/3/1 article should be both a conclusion and a transition into the next section of the article—your Main Points. This way, the reader feels as though they’ve reached their first “checkpoint” reading your piece (giving them a feeling of accomplishment) while also hinting at where you are going to take them next.
The 1/5/1 structure is the same as the 1/3/1 structure, just with more room for description and clarification in the middle.
Notice again how every single structure relies on a single opening sentence, and always ends with a single conclusion sentence. Pieces that open with two consecutive sentences in the first paragraph are weaker. And pieces that open with three or more sentences in the first paragraph are tiring for the reader. As much as possible, you want to crescendo and decrescendo your rhythms, starting with one sentence, then moving up to three, four, or five sentences, then back down to two sentences, then back down to one—and repeat. This is what makes the reader feel like they’re riding a wave.
More Main Points = Less Explanation Less Main Points = More Explanation Once you have the skeleton of your piece outlined, and you have a sense of how “big” (visually) each Main Point is going to be, the next step is to start filling them in.
