A daily writing habit isn’t enough to change your life.
Amateurs peddle this advice like it’s the holy grail and we’ll make you the Tom Cruise of the writing world and help you buy a Lambo. Wrong.
In the last year, I’ve met ten (and counting) 7-figure online writers. They’re a different breed. Here’s everything I learned from them.
Writing isn’t enough
Amateur writers think their job is just to write. Nothing else.
So they get stuck on a writing hamster wheel and slowly have their per-article or per-word fee go from dollars to cents.
A 7-figure online writer isn’t afraid to promote their work.
They think like A business owner instead of the average writer who thinks like an employee. Sure, they prioritize writing, but above all else they focus on making sure people SEE their writing.
They don’t sound like ChatGPT
99% of the writing I read online could’ve been written by ChatGPT.
It’s boring, lifeless, and reads like a Wikipedia article. 7-figure writers go beyond information. They have ideas. They’ve lived life and experienced failures and rejections.
They don’t piss all over their writing with cliches and Chicken-Soup-For-The-Soul fortune cookie advice. They write about what they know and have experienced.
Above all, their writing has energy.
You feel something when you read it. There’s a unique writer’s voice front and center. Their writing feels like you’re having a conversation with them.
If your writing reads like a journal entry, you’ll never make money. People buy entertainment and emotion more than they buy information.
The writer who can’t write and made $10M to pay medical bills
Jon Morrow is an old school blogger.
He can’t move most of his body or type on a keyboard. Yet he made $10M from writing to pay his medical bills.
I’ve been lucky to talk with Jon a few times. He’s a humble and approachable guy. He knows a lot about selling information products, which is a foundational income stream for the modern online writer.
He taught me that most expert writers are morons.
They let their expertise make them think they’re better than everyone else. So people don’t read because of all the ego. They often tell way too many stories and ramble like a meth addict on their deathbed.
Jon says if you sell information products, all people want are results. They don’t want more information. Read that again.
We’re drowning in information. Yet the average writer can’t wait to spray you in the face with a firehose of their writing that screams “Look at me, look at me, please look at me!”
If the world wanted more information, every online writer would be a millionaire with a Rolex watch.
But most are broke and barely paying their heating bill while jumping through publication circus hoops.
Get to the point and focus on giving people a result with your writing.
Trying to have a strategy is the worst strategy of them all
Millionaire writer Mark Manson has been cool enough to respond to a few of my messages over the years.
He wrote The Subtle Art of Not Giving an F book, which broke most book sale records. Mark taught me that until you’ve published hundreds and even thousands of articles on the internet, you don’t know much.
You’re just guessing.
Amateur writers try and map out the whole journey at the start and end up writing their career into an early grave.
No one knows the niche at the start. No one knows how they’ll make money on day one. And no one knows what value they have or what problem they can solve for the world at the start.
You learn these things as you write more and pay attention to the readers, feedback, and data you collect.
Trying to have a strategy at the start is the fastest way to get stabbed in the face by perfectionism and overthinking and never write again.
Slow your roll. Write first. And make sure you listen back.
You’ll become a different writer in a year
Dan Koe makes $5M+ a year from his writing.
He started as a web developer helping people build websites. His social media accounts posted nothing more than subliminal ads screaming “Let me build a website for you for $99!”
Dan is now unrecognizable. He’s transcended into a world and genre that is almost impossible to define.
How you start doesn’t matter. It’s what you become that counts, and no one knows what that’ll look like. Especially not you.
Trust the writing process.
One common trait of 7-figure online writers
Here’s a stat that might surprise you: 100% of the income these writers make comes from their email list.
Read that ten times.
Their email lists are the most valuable asset they have (more valuable than their firstborn child or family).
They don’t screw around chasing views, followers, or getting featured in publications. Everything they do on social media is about building their email list.
Amateur writers don’t get this. They rent an audience and get smacked on the butt with a golf stick by their platform landlord who makes them jump through new hoops every month.
Without an email list you have nothing.
Understand the basics of business for the love of god
The employee mindset teaches us to focus on getting discounts, saving money, and haggling like a homeless person for a free coffee.
7-figure writers focus on one skill: making more money.
Everything else is a distraction. And asking for discounts is offensive and a great way to burn relationships with high performers.
To make more money they each know the basics of business. None of them did an MBA, but they did consume plenty of business content to learn:
- Simple internet marketing
- Basic persuasion
- Sales funnels
- Pricing
- Offers
- KPIs
Writing online is a business. Read that 6000 times.
And you don’t need to be an entrepreneur or be as good at business as Jeff Bezos or Mark Suckerberg.
The bizarre trait amongst 7-figure writers
Let’s finish here.
Elitism has ruined the internet. “I’m better than you” thinking has led to debates about dumb stuff filled with stupid, stubborn people.
All of the 7-figure writers I’ve met are surprisingly humble. They chase their curiosity. They never believe they know everything. They hate the label “expert.”
What they all share is a level of humility.
I’ve learned that what readers buy more than anything is your view of the world. 7-figure writers lean hard into their view of the world. Study 7-figure writers, and run from “How I Made $1 Writing On Speedium Dot Com.”
