Don’t Stress Over Sales - Just Productivity

There’s a problem that working writers always face, and that is, how to earn money writing.

It’s one thing to decide that you want to earn money writing articles or as a freelance writer or even a novelist, but it’s difficult, if not impossible, to know how much money you’ll earn.

The truth is that you cannot control your income from your writing (unless you’re a columnist and get paid regularly) but you can control your productivity. 

I’ve been working as a writer for over 20 years now so I know that I need to earn money from my writing, but I cannot control that. But I can control what I do.

If you’re in the same position and you want to earn money from your writing, or you’re just beginning, here’s what I suggest (from my own experience):

Have a plan of what you’re going to do and then work your plan. I know that sounds overly simple, but it’s the only thing you can do and it’s what you MUST do.

Start by picking the best time to write. It doesn’t have to be the same time every day, but you need to decide which hours on which days will be your writing time. If you don’t set time aside to write you won’t do it. Alternatively, decide how long you’ll write every day (say, one or two hours) and then fit it into your day no matter what, and no matter how late that means you may have to work.

Next, you need to decide what you want to write and how you’re going to earn money from it. It can be more than one thing. I began as a freelance writer and at the same time I set up my own website, published articles on it, and earned money through PPC advertising on the site. One was paid income (freelancing), the other was passive income. And together they earned me enough money so that I could quit my job.

Finally, you need to work hard. And by hard I mean you need to be productive. Not busy. It’s too easy to get caught up in things that don’t matter like reading emails or checking social media or over-researching. Make sure that you’re actually writing, submitting and publishing.

So choose your time to write, know the tasks you need to do, and be your most productive self.

And most importantly, be consistent in everything you do. Don’t be productive once. Do it always.

Success comes from hard work.  And productive people are always successful

Fast & Profitable Article Writing

In a Month

https://ruthiswriting.com/books/MCWS3.html

How to Apply The 80/20 Rule to Make More Money Online

When you’re running an online business, or any business for that matter, you naturally want to make as much money as you can.

But time is not limitless, there’s only so much you can do in a day. So how can you make more money without working longer?

The answer is simple.

Look at what you’ve already got and use that.

Now this may sound obvious and at the same time confusing, so I’ll explain.

Say you have a website (or 2 or 3) and each of them is making money.

That may be great, but what if you want to earn more money from the website/s you already have instead of creating more?

That’s where the 80/20 rule comes in.

You need to look at all the things you’re doing to earn money every day. Your time might be taken up with

• Article marketing
• Product creation
• Guest posting
• Blog comments
• Affiliate marketing
• And more…

From all these things, which gives you the best return for your efforts? In other words, what’s producing the most sales?

For instance, you might be spending 4 hours/week writing and submitting marketing articles and 1 hour/week posting blog comments on other people’s blogs.

And when you look at your website stats and your sales stats, you might see that when you post blog comments it brings far more visitors to your site and creates a flood of sales, while your marketing articles produce only a fifth of those results.

This is the 80/20 rule.

You’re spending 80% of your time (4 hours out of 5) writing articles to produce 20% of the results (one-fifth of the sales). 

Whereas with your blog commenting, you’re spending only 20% of your time (1 hour out of 5) to produce 5-times the results (80%) of your marketing articles.

So you can see just from this quick example that you need to either:

Post more comments and write fewer articles

or

Improve the results from your article marketing.

Another way to apply the 80/20 rule is to look at the page view stats for your website, see which pages get the most page views and perhaps think about writing more articles like that.

Also, look at the products that sell best and get more like them.

You can also change the prices of your products by lowering or increasing them to see if it makes a difference or bundle your products or add bonuses so that you can make better offers to your customers.

Remember that many customers who buy online, only do so if they think the value of what they’re buying far exceeds the price they’re paying.

Changing what you sell or how you sell it can impact sales and make you do less work (20%) for more sales (80%)

Apply the 80/20 rule in every area of your website and every area of how you work.

Do more of what’s working and stop doing/improving what isn’t.

80/20 Sales and Marketing: 

The Definitive Guide to Working Less and Making More

By Perry Marshall

https://amzn.to/3E1eSWm

Finding The Time and a Place to Write

One of the biggest problems that some writers face is finding time to write.

If this is a problem that you always face, then this is the best advice I can give you:

You'll never FIND the time to write.

You have to MAKE the time to write.

No one has 'Free Time'. There's no such thing so don't go looking for it.

In order to find free time, there would have to be a part of the day where you're not using your time for other things. In other words, you're looking for a time where you do nothing but sit and stare into space. That's your free time.

Does that sound like a part of your normal day? I don't think so.

If you want to write, you have to make the time to do it. This will mean giving up something that's less important like watching TV or socializing.

This will seem hard at first, but before you know it, writing will be a part of your daily routine just like everything else you do.

And if you already have a full-time job and a family and you feel that you really just don't have the time to complete The 12 Month Writing Challenge, remember this:

It's a challenge. It's not meant to be easy. And if you look at your daily working routine you'll see that you have pockets of time all over the place.

You can write in your lunch hour, on the train, get up earlier to write or burn the midnight oil and go to bed later.

You just need to have the drive, determination and laser-like focus to do it.

And once you start writing and you get to know how long it takes you to complete something, then you can plan better and streamline your whole system of working.

Just remember that if you really want to be a writer, you have to stop making excuses for yourself. You need to work at it and make it work for you.

Have a Place to Write

I have a place where I write. I have a small desk in my library at home. I also have a laptop computer and a printer and a small chest of drawers full of papers and notebooks in my library.

This is where I mostly work. It's a cosy room and feels relaxing.

Sometimes I sit outside and work, either on my back covered patio or on my front porch. Some days I even work in the park or at the local library (it's air-conditioned on a hot day).

But mostly I work at my desk in my library.

I read a lot and I've read much about other writers and how they work. And one common thread of most writers is that they have a place where they write. Most of them have a time when they write too.

Having a place to write works in several different ways -

It puts you in a writing mood.

It's easy to keep equipment at hand.

Others know you're always busy when you’re in your writing place.

There are fewer distractions.

It's easy to organize your writing place so that you're not distracted by the TV or a nice view (don't sit facing a window).

And once you've established a place where you write, other family members will quickly learn that when you’re in your writing place you’re busy and don’t want to be disturbed.

And as you start earning money, other family members might start to take your writing seriously.

Sign up to learn more about writing and earning money.

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How To Work With The Razor-Sharp Focus Of A Zen Monk

Image Courtesy of Pixabay

The hardest part of running your own online business is staying focused.

It’s easy sitting down and getting your work done when you have a 9 to 5 job with a boss looking over your shoulder. But it’s a whole other world when you’re working at home on your own with no deadlines and no accountability except to yourself.

Self-discipline is easy to say but can be hard to achieve.

So if you’re having trouble with concentrating and getting your work done, then you need to practice having the razor-sharp focus of a Zen monk.

Can you imagine how great it would be if you could have complete focus on whatever task you were doing and forget about everything else? Just think of how much you could get done and how well you’d do it?

How Do Zen Monks Focus?  

Zen monks (and all monks) focus by only ever concentrating on one thing at a time.

If they’re gardening, they’re only focused on the plant in their hand. If they’re walking they are focused on each step as they take it. They never think ahead as to how the garden will look or what they’ll do when they reach their destination. Instead they concentrate on whatever they’re doing in each moment.

How Can You Focus Like a Zen Monk? 

Working this way requires forward planning. If you want to achieve the same kind of focus, then you need to plan ahead so that you know what you have to do and when to do it.

You also need to break things down into tasks, not projects.

For instance, creating a website is a project. Finding a hosting company, building a web page, writing content, are all tasks that make up the project.

Planning ahead frees up your mind by removing all the clutter. Clutter is the worrying you do over other tasks you still have to do.

Zen monks not only have clutter-free minds, they also have clutter-free lives. They own very few possessions which frees them up so that they can spend more time on what’s important to them instead of cleaning and maintaining possessions they don’t need.

You can also rid your own life of unnecessary clutter. Sell or donate what you don’t need and you can have more room for living.

Don’t let distractions clutter your attention either. When you’re working, ignore the phone if it rings and don’t check your email all the time. If your phone alerts you to emails and messages all the time, turn it to silent and put it in a drawer in another room.

Keep Your Focus Longer 

If you find that your focus starts to wane, take a five-minute break. It can be helpful to work in short bursts of 30 to 40 minutes and then have a 5-minute break to go and make a cup of coffee or pat the dog. Just do something unrelated to your work.

Breathe More 

When you work hunched over a desk for too long you may find that your breathing becomes shallow.

Zen monks believe in the stress-reducing and focus-inducing power of slow deep breathing.

If you find you’re hunching over your work, sit up with your spine straight and take a few slow deep breathes and it will clear your mind and help you to focus more.

And stay away from excuses - I’m too tired, I’m too stressed, I have writers’ block. These aren’t reasons for not working. They’re only excuses.

Whenever you feel yourself procrastinating, say “No Excuse!” and get back to work.

Take A Leaf 

The late, great copywriter, Eugene Schwartz, worked like a zen monk and he earned millions of dollars from his writing.

So take a leaf out of his book (figuratively speaking, not literally) and make sure that when you’re working, you’re working in a ‘zen’ state.

Start simple and don’t overwhelm yourself.

All you need to run a successful online business is a computer, an internet connection and the ability to focus like a zen monk.

And if you’re reading this then you already have the first two.

So now...how’s your focus?

The Power of Concentration

By Theron Q Dumont

To make the greatest success of anything you must be able to concentrate your entire thought upon the idea you are working on. 

The person that is able to concentrate utilizes all constructive thoughts and shuts out all destructive ones. 

The greatest man would accomplish nothing if he lacked concentration. 

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