Flying nearly five hours across the majority of America, I had time to kill, or perhaps, stolen time from Mother Earth to finally do things I usually put off in the name of productivity. These items stack up on my desktop, free ebooks and copied posts, awaiting the moment I have time to tap into them - notepad and pen poised.
Somewhere over the Great Plains, I tackled Chris Guillebeau's 279 Days to Overnight Success, an ebook on becoming a full-time writer I downloaded eight months ago. Boy, did I reap the rewards...
In the recent months, I've read a select few ebooks on various topics all relating to my desire to do what I love and get paid to make these activities sustainable. While some have been purely technical and others simply a momentary injection of inspiration, Chris' points got me buzzing for action. I filled an empty document with so many notes, I had to stop mid-way through to organize the avalanche of thoughts.
Chris outlines the basics of his success for the people he most connects with - the artists, the bloggers and the entrepreneurs - and discusses how he became a full-time writer in 279 days, what income he has earned from his blog, how he establishes his brand and avoids being pulled down by online critics. I found an incredible amount of good ideas from this free ebook, some of which I've detail below:
Continue to put an emphasis on building online relationships with other bloggers and those who express interest in my site
Connect using LinkedIn
Develop ideas for symbiosis between these online entities
Tell those I follow "Thank You" for the work that they do and explain the value I reap from seeing their work
Ask my followers why they visit my site and what they perceive to be the value I can offer
Understand how to use what strengths I've got working for me
Site the publications that have endorsed my website
Promote the posts viewers seem to find more relevant
Use what connections I have to leverage my possibilities for income-making endeavors and answer questions about what I don't yet know
Begin turning my most prized information into compact, helpful, entertaining guides or ebooks for possible income
Redefine the mark of success with my blog
Prioritize my time to have writing and creation at the top of the list
Nurture my current followers and speak as though I have the number I hope to attract from producing quality content
Create more posts on "Why" and further push the direction of my content toward my preferred destination
Value constructive criticism but learn to recognize toxic criticism and not let it suck my energy like that one vampire everyone's obsessed with at the movies
That's only a fraction of my potential action inspired by this free ebook, not to mention the four new blog posts ideas I came away with.
The 79 pages took me a couple hours to read thanks to all the note-taking and thought-provoking that went on. It's hard to find or rationalize that time to read such resources, but I definitely found value in checking out Chris' personal advice on improving what I love to do.
Read Chris' ebook on Online Success for yourself
Has anyone else read Chris' manifesto on full-time writing yet? What was your reaction, and did you find any value in his words?