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Writing

How I Built a Six-Figure Business on the Back of Writing Online

March 10, 2023 by Eva Keiffenheim

Creating my dream job while working four hours a day.

Speaking at LEAP23 in Riyadh (credits: Mohammad Al-Suraye)

Many online creators complain about how hard it is to make a living from writing online. But if you take a more strategic approach, it can become easier.

Back in 2020, I had a couple of +$5,000 months on this platform, primarily through shallow buzzword articles like this one:

Source: screenshot by the author

This article took me a bit under three hours to write.

Money printing, huh?

But the truth is most earnings from my articles on Medium look like the one below, or even worse.

Source: Screenshot by the author

If I had relied on making a living through this platform alone, I could have never made a living as a solopreneur.

In this story, I share how I built a six-figure business on the back of writing and what you can apply to your journey.


Master These Two Areas to Unlock the Rest

If you want to build a sustainable online business on the back of writing, there are two areas you want to pay attention to — learn how to write articles people want to read and become a subject expert.

Write articles people actually want to read

When you start writing online, you have no clue what you need to do so that people read your work. Many new writers start with an illusion of superiority. They expect their first article to be a hit (including me back in April 2020).

New writers know so little they fail to see what they don’t know. It’s not as simple as having an idea, writing it down, publishing it, and watching it reach millions of readers.

Moving from idea generation to a well-articulated article requires multiple sub-skills you must master. For example, idea generation and selection; headline, hook, and paragraph title writing; editing; reader-centricity; formatting; consistency; and more.

I invested in writing courses and spent hundreds of hours experimenting and learning. (I am now offering a live writing course myself, scholarship application here.)

By the end of May 2020, I had spent around 200 hours writing online, earning roughly $0.07 an hour. I kept going, although I had zero followers and was invisible online.

Becoming a decent writer requires discipline and constant improvement. It’s hard to keep going when no one would care if you stopped. So many writers don’t stick around for long enough.

But if you’re willing to put in the effort, keep learning, and consistently publish high-quality content (I published 176 articles in my first 13 months of writing), you will become a good writer.

But good writing isn’t enough. Most likely, this platform alone won’t generate enough of your income for you to stick around. That’s why you want to focus on a second area.

Become a subject expert

One side effect of writing many writers ignore is that when you share what you learn and know for long enough, people will recognize you as an expert.

My deep-dive articles on learning and education have attracted most of my ongoing clients (more on that in the next section).

So how do you become a subject expert? There are three repeatable steps:

  1. Pick a topic or area that you feel curious about
  2. Learn and read about the topic
  3. Synthesize what you learn in great articles (this requires you’ve mastered the first skill — writing articles people want to read)

When selecting a topic, don’t chase the next big trend. Focus on a topic you feel genuinely drawn to.

Pick a topic or industry that you could imagine working for. For example, I chose education and learning, and Julia Blum chose psychedelics.

Don’t pick your area of expertise before you have mastered writing. Practice the craft with whatever comes to your mind. You want to explore anything that potentially excites you.

In the first months, I wrote about nutrition, relationships, spirituality, and much more. Monitor what you enjoy writing and feel curious about exploring even further. As widely-read blogger Mark Manson says:

“Until you’ve written 100 posts, you generally have no clue what you enjoy writing about or what people enjoy reading from you.”


Diversifying your income streams

In 2020, when the first potential client asked me about my hourly rate, I replied with the only reference point I had — my last student job. (Yes, in 2020, I sold my first 100 hours of working as a writer and researcher for $20/hour).

Less than three years into my online writing journey, my day rate is $1,400 (with a discount for non-profit organizations).

How?

Five months into my online writing journey, I started to receive LinkedIn messages like this one 3 or 4 times every week.

Source: screenshot by the author

I didn’t have a homepage.

I didn’t advertise any services.

Hell, I didn’t even have a fixed day rate.

But the better I became at writing, and the more I published high-quality articles on my key subject area, the more requests filled my inbox. And this never stopped.

I still don’t have a proper homepage.

I still don’t do sales calls.

I publish only a couple of articles a month on Medium.

And yet, I have sold my available work days until the end of July. My projects vary — from writing and research to consulting, project management, public speaking, and advisory roles, but all within the realm of learning and education.

Naval Ravikant says: “You’re never going to get rich renting out your time. Earn with your mind, not your time.”

Online entrepreneurs can indeed become wealthy by establishing systems that make money independent from time. They build products without costs for selling additional units such as books, online courses, media, movies, and code.

But I realized I don’t care about this truth. Because my life became richer the day I stopped optimizing for passive income.

I am fully committed to a few projects aligned with my purpose and long-term goal of creating learning and education systems that allow all learners — independent of their socioeconomic background — to thrive.

Attracting clients through writing has been the key to unlocking this life. It created tremendous opportunities and helped me build income streams I couldn’t imagine when I started three years ago. And I am convinced it can do the same for you, even if your journey might look different.

Speaking at the European Education Summit in Brussels (Source: European Commission)

Final Words

Writing has become and will remain integral to my life. I’m deeply grateful for the insight, people, and projects writing has brought to me. I’ve created a life I enjoy living, and this reality wouldn’t have been possible without writing.

Most likely, writing alone won’t generate an income to live from, but it can open up incredible opportunities and help you create your dream life.

Whether searching for more purpose in what you’re doing, feel as if you have not yet unlocked your professional potential, or are looking for ways to have a higher income, know that writing can be the tool to help you get there.

Writing does not remove systemic barriers and privileges. Timing, luck, and other factors determine whether you can up-level your life through writing.

But when you consistently commit to writing and publishing online, you put yourself out there and showcase your work. If you stick with it long enough and become good along the way, people will recognize you as an expert, bringing new opportunities along your way.


Ready to fuel your career through writing?

Subscribe to the bi-weekly write letter to get inspired, or join the next cohort of my writing online accelerator (scholarship application here).

Filed Under: ✍🏽 Online Creators Tagged With: Entrepreneurship, Ideas, inspiration, Writing

Here’s How Writing Unlocked a Life I Never Dared to Dream of

February 23, 2023 by Eva Keiffenheim

And why I don’t want to live another day without it.

Eva Keiffenheim (Credits: Jana Hofmann)

When I wrote my first article three years ago, I had no idea how writing would change my life.

Here’s my most personal story on Medium so far. It’s a short but sharp snapshot of how I went from being depressed to a life I love living and the role writing continues to play in it.


How I hustled myself into depression

As a first-generation student from a middle-income family in rural Germany, hustle culture was in my blood, slowly pushing me into depression.

At age 16, I spent my summer holidays as a factory worker. (I bought a new phone with the money I earned, which I lost the first week after the holidays).

At age 18, I worked as a full-time postwoman, getting up at 4 AM to deliver parcels and letters.

Before turning 21, throughout my undergraduate degree, I worked my way “up” in part-time jobs — from a hostess to a sales agent in retail, to a FinTech human resource manager, to a prestigious internship on the 91st floor of Shanghai’s world financial center.

2015 at my internship in Shanghai (Source: Author)

At age 22, I hit rock bottom. I hoped to be sick forever, so I would never have to leave my bed again. I gained 10kg in two months. I felt depleted and empty. I entertained the idea of ending my life.

I won’t bore you with the details of the slow recovery (which involved pausing my studies, relying on financial support from my parents and emotional support from my school friends, therapy, and working in India).

But I will share one crucial lesson I learned very early in life: hustling doesn’t lead to happiness.

From the outside, it can seem as if someone has everything when on the inside, they have nothing.


My journey toward a life I never dreamed of

In my early twenties, I didn’t accept and like myself, so I focused all of my energy on excelling in a way validated by society.

I worked long hours not to face the emptiness and insecurity inside myself. Like many others, I used hustling to cope with unresolved trauma.

But thanks to winning the passport lottery and the privilege that goes along with it, I could use my remaining willpower and perseverance to do the inner work.

Facing and working through my trauma led to profound changes in how I work and who I work with.

I still approach work with ambition, and I strive for excellence. I deeply enjoy the work projects I commit to and receive feedback I am incredibly proud of.

But work is no longer the only cornerstone of my understanding of a successful life. I aim for four-hour laptop work days (which works nine out of ten times) to have enough capacity to care for myself and others. As a result, I can show up for projects as my most present, clear, and energized version.

I finally have time to do many of the “one day maybe” things. For example, I developed new skills and passions, such as DJing, delivering a TEDx talk, hosting a weekly podcast with my partner, and volunteering for a community project.

I feel more mental and physical strength than ever before. Not because I am a hyper-productive hustle machine but because I give myself enough space and time to live life at my pace.


My not-so-secret fuel for learning and growing

While writing has not pushed me out of depression, it has fueled my personal and professional development. Writing in public has helped me shape a life filled with flexibility and joy.

It all started in the earliest days of the first lockdown in 2020, when I saw a video on Facebook about a writing course.

A friend shared how she had made $7,000 from a single Medium article. Money was never my key motivation for changing careers, but I felt intrigued.

I took her and many other writing courses and started publishing consistently. From there, plenty of new opportunities and insights evolved, on which I will elaborate another time. But in short, writing online has helped me:

  • better understand my purpose in life.
  • unleash my inner voice.
  • organize my thinking.
  • connect with some of the most inspiring humans.
  • find an activity that brings me into blissful, creative flow states.
  • build a six-figure one-person business.
  • discover some of the most powerful tools and mindsets for living.

Writing has been the key to pushing me toward a life I never dared to dream of. I know my purpose in life. I have a full mind, body, and soul YES to the projects I committed to. I earn more than I have ever dreamed of. I have time and energy for the people I love. I know everything I want is available to me. I am calm and happy, connected with this present moment.


Final thoughts

Whether you are struggling to stay afloat in hustle culture, searching for your purpose in life, or feel as if you have not yet tapped into expressing your voice, know that you are not alone.

Writing won’t fix everything. But writing in public is a potent tool to gain clarity and insight toward a life you never dared to dream about.


Ready to start writing online?

Subscribe to the bi-weekly write letter to get inspired, or join the next cohort of my writing online accelerator.

Filed Under: ✍🏽 Online Creators Tagged With: inspiration, life lessons, Writing

3 Applicable Lessons I Learned From Building a Profitable Online Course

October 25, 2022 by Eva Keiffenheim

Here’s what you can take away from it.

Source: Canva

Have you ever wondered what it takes to build an online course that will earn you a living?

When I thought about leaving my job as a teacher at the beginning of 2020, earning money independent from time seemed like a distant dream.

Now it’s reality. I’ve just wrapped up my third cohort-based course cohort. 72 students have joined three cohorts, with a rating of 9.1/10.

If you’re toying with the idea of running a course one day or you’re already running a course and want to improve it, this article is for you. I share my biggest learnings from building and running a cohort-based course with you.


1) The Only Metric Needed for Building a Course Your Students Will Love

Many online courses are money machines for course creators but time-wasters for their students.

Most of the time, people who’ve excelled at their craft aren’t the best teachers. Moreover, the most dominant form of online courses (watching videos) does not align with how our brains learn best.

As a former teacher and learning weird, I didn’t want to settle with how things have always been done. I researched better ways to help students achieve their desired learning goals through online education.

The answer? A format that aligns with the science of learning: cohort-based courses (CBCs).

In CBCs, learners move through a course together, with direct access to instructors, ongoing deliberate practice, and a high accountability system.

The key reasons why I decided on CBCs are the benefits for students:

  • Real-time feedback on learning progress.
  • Structured access to a subject-specific community.
  • Assignments that are directly linked to their desired learning outcome.
  • Accountability through communities and instructors helps follow through when things get complicated.

What you can take away from this:

You don’t need extensive teaching experience but the willingness to learn and deliver. Your students learning outcome is the only metric that matters. Make student success your number one priority by building a no-BS course your students will love.

How?

You want to be crystal clear on what your students should be able to achieve with the help of your course.

You want to make your course highly outcome-focused (e.g., mastering a skill, landing a job, growing an audience) and focus on the how instead of the why.

Source: Created by Eva Keiffenheim inspired by Wes Kao.

A helpful framework is the following, suggested by Wes: “By the end of the course, you’ll be able to do X without Y (usual blocker or friction).”

Lastly, use backward design to structure your course. Two questions that led my thinking were: “Which activities would students need to practice to achieve the desired learning outcome?” and “Which input is required so they can best complete this activity?”

Consider the learning outcomes and the necessary practice for achieving them before considering how to teach the content.

Design the lessons around action orientation. Provide guided exercises, templates, and step-by-step guides to help your students succeed. This way, you will create a course your students will love.

Screenshot from the Writing Online Accelerator Community Cohort 3

2) Without This My Course Would Have Failed

A friend told me he attempted to copy Ali Abdaal’s structure to make $2,000,000 on Skillshare. My friend soon gave up. He neither had the video experience nor an existing audience that followed him everywhere.

The best tutorial is useless if you compare yourself against someone too different. So here’s a thing I need to reveal.

Before creating the course, I had 15,000 followers on Medium, 2,500 on LinkedIn, 10,000 podcast listeners, and 2,900 loyal email subscribers of the weekly Learn Letter.

I am convinced my course would have failed without this existing group of online friends.

Before building my course, I followed Julia Horvath’s instructors to first understand my customers.

I sent several emails to my subscribers asking things such as: “I’m thinking about building an online course. Which topics would you like to see me cover?” People replied with questions about how to write online.

In my next mail, I asked: “What’s the number one biggest challenge when it comes to learning or writing?” Informed by around 25 replies to these two questions, I wrote this email and created this survey. Two hundred people replied to the survey, which helped me with the subsequent step.

The email template I used to ask my audience.
The email led to this survey, where I would capture initial interest.

What you can take away from this:

The biggest struggle most online creators have is selling their courses. This is so much easier if you have an existing newsletter subscriber base.

Build an audience before you build an online course.

If you have close to zero followers on any platform, this might sound frustrating. But what a waste of time would it be to create an online course that nobody ends up buying?

So how do you create an online audience?

Provide value online by being helpful. That’s how James Clear, Anne-Laure Le Cunff, Ali Abdaal, and many other successful online entrepreneurs did it.

This requires a lot of investment upfront, without expecting anything in return.

But once you have an online audience, you can build a course and basically do anything you want. Where do you start?

Choose a means (video, writing, or programming). Then, start creating content and follow your audience’s clues.


3) The Tools and Resources I Use For Running a Cohort-Based Course

After deciding on the CBC format, I researched the best options to host cohort-based courses. I looked into Teachfloor, Teachfloor, Virtually, Graphy, and Classcamp, and ultimately settled for Maven.

Maven was started by the founders of Udemy, altMBA, and Socratic. And you can tell Wes, Gagan, and their team knows what they’re doing. Their creator course accelerator has been the best online learning experience of my life.

What does the platform do for me as a course creator? Maven handles the payments via Stripe, has a landing page builder, sends out calendar invites and emails to students, and offers excellent support if something is not working. I’ve run my first three cohorts on their platform and am very content.

In addition to Maven, there are a couple of further resources I use.

  • Convertkit to run my newsletters and email marketing campaigns ($80/month).
  • Zoom pro for the live sessions and recordings ($50/month).
  • Canva for creating slides ($15/month).
  • Slack for communication (even though I’m considering moving to a different platform, such as Circle or using Maven’s newly inbuilt platform).
  • A second screen, a high-quality webcam, a ring light, and a solid microphone.
  • Clickup to do project management of everything required for pre-launch, launch, running the cohort, and strategy.

And lastly, I have support from brilliant Eszter Brhlik, who supports operations, project management and leads our sales strategy.

What you can take away from this:

Building and running a cohort-based course requires different subskills and some tech tools.

Spend time researching the infrastructure that works best for you. Then, think about the people you need to support you (marketing, sales, creating course material, student support).


What’s Next

Building this course has been one of the most rewarding learning experiences of my life (apart from teaching kids at a school).

I hope you will find similar enjoyment and financial success in building a course your student will love.

May you enjoy your journey as an online creator 🙂


Want to feel inspired and become smarter about how you learn?

Subscribe free to my Learn Letter. Each Wednesday, you’ll get proven tools and resources that elevate your love for learning.

Filed Under: ✍🏽 Online Creators Tagged With: cohort based courses, Editing, Writing

The Ultimate Guide to Help You Write Non-Fiction Articles

October 25, 2022 by Eva Keiffenheim

The skills needed to grow an audience, create career opportunities, help people, build a side hustle, and become a lifelong learner.

Eva Keiffenheim (Golden Hour Pictures)

I never thought I’d write online and earn money independently from time.

Before March 2020, I hadn’t published anything on the internet. I thought you’d need to study journalism, have a writing degree, a big goal, or at least some relevant experience.

I had none of these.

But I was curious. And I started writing. I took courses, spent my money on writing coaches, read countless books, contacted fellow writers, and kept perfecting my process day by day.

Two years later, more than 2 million people have read my articles on learning and knowledge management, 27k people follow me on Medium, and more than 4k people subscribed to my weekly Learn Letter. More than 60 students took my cohort-based online course and rated it 9.1/10.

But apart from the numbers and building diverse income streams, I found writing to be a vehicle to explore my curiosity, clarify my thinking, and support other people. There’s nothing more rewarding than people telling me my writing has helped them.

As an education expert and ex-high-school teacher, I’m passionate about creating learner-centric material that provides learners with the clear, practical advice they need.

In this sense, I created this long-read article for people who are about to start their writing journey or who are midway through and looking for applicable tools and resources to improve their process. It contains the sub-skills needed to write non-fiction articles.

Whether you’re a curious mind wanting to explore online writing, a professional looking for exciting career opportunities, someone who hopes to share their experiences with the world, or a lifelong learner wishing to clarify their thinking, this article will give you all you need to accelerate your journey.

You’ll find here everything I wish I had when I lacked a process for online writing.

The article is structured in 10 sections containing the exact system I created for writing online. I designed this guide to help you in the best way possible, so each part has actionable steps you can follow.

Once you’ve read this article, you’ll have a well-suited theory and actionable tasks that will help you practice the ideas.

Likely, you won’t read this article in one go, but start with the section you’re most curious about, and come back to this piece when you’re ready to learn more.

Table of Contents
1. How to Stick Through Until You’ve Gone Viral
2. The Key to Audience Growth Many New Writers Miss out On
3. ​​How to Always Live in an Abundance of Writing Ideas
4. Find Your Writing Niche for Growing an Audience
5. How to Write Headlines That Make People Click
6. This Introduction Technique Will Help You Hook People In
7. A Clear Editing Blueprint for Improving Your Writing in 5 Steps
8. How You Can Keep Writing No Matter What
9. The Only 9 Writing Tools I Use For Maximum Efficiency
10. All Free Resources in One Place

If you feel you want to go deeper to accelerate your online writing journey, join my 3-week cohort-based course that runs twice each year. You transform into a consistent writer and lifelong learner. You learn to express your thoughts online effectively, attract an audience, and use your ideas to help and inspire others.

The course is unique because you won’t only learn, but you’ll also apply your knowledge and leave the cohort with three high-quality articles. Because you can only improve your writing skills if you sit down and write.


1. How to Stick Through Until You’ve Gone Viral

Most people fail to attract an online audience because they quit too early.

They expect prompt results. But writing online is no sprint. You see the effects of your work only once you’ve passed the invisible virality threshold. And to pass it, you need to learn and improve while no one reacts or replies to your work.

The issue is that as you put more time and energy into writing, sticking through becomes harder and harder.

When I hit publish for the first time, I felt insecure but great. My friends cheered me and shared one of my first articles across their LinkedIn and Facebook accounts.

As with every new learning adventure, initial enthusiasm vanished fast and made space for reality. I became more aware of my unknown unknowns — the things I wasn’t even aware of in the first place but that I realized later are relevant for succeeding with writing online.

And as if this burden wasn’t enough, no one read my work.

What I call “writing in the void” (aka practising in public) is the hardest part of becoming an online writer. Until you’ve crossed the virality threshold, no external factors attest to your learning.

You don’t get thoughtful comments.

You don’t receive emails of gratitude.

You don’t see any financial rewards.

And that’s where most people give up.

If you want to experience the diverse benefits of writing, don’t be one of them. Instead, treat writing as a marathon.

It took me one single article to reach 100,000 people and gain 500 subscribers. But there were 39 articles before where I didn’t get any reaction at all. If I had quit after article 39 (and about 300 hours of writing and learning), I would have never crossed the threshold.

If you stick to a consistent, deliberate writing practice (more on what it contains in the sections below), you can achieve the same.

Your single most important goal when starting to write online is to not expect anything in return until you’ve published 100 articles (thanks for this wise advice Sinem Günel).

Growth in your writing audience is not linear, but exponential. Source: Writing Online Accelerator Module 1

What you can do now

Prepare yourself for long-term writing, with a realistic plan you can stick to even when you don’t see any traction.

Approach writing online as you would approach preparing for a marathon. Instead of having the goal of running for 42.195 kilometres, you want to set the goal of publishing 100 articles online.

When tracking your progress, don’t focus on any external metrics such as followers, claps, or subscribers. The only thing you should track is the time you’ve spent writing and the number of articles you’ve published.

To stick through until you’ve published 100 articles, plan backwards. Grab a sheet of paper or open your note-taking app and answer these questions:

  • How many hours a week can you spend writing? (Hint: the ideal number is the one you can stick with)
  • When are you actually going to sit down and write? How can you block out time for writing? What do you need to stop doing to have time for writing?
  • How many hours do you need per article? (Hint: with practice, your writing time will decrease; my first articles took me about 12 hours per article, but I’m now at roughly 3 hours per article).
  • When will you have published your first 100 articles?

2. The Key to Audience Growth Many New Writers Miss out On

Most writers don’t set up their email lists from day one because they think it’s unnecessary.

They believe nothing can be more important than writing and learning how to write better. An email list feels like a painful extra step.

Many people also feel as if they lack the tech knowledge to do it and don’t want to waste hours figuring out the setups. There are too many providers, and precious writing time can fly away trying to figure out how to set up an email list.

Yet, ignoring the importance of starting an email list from day one is a mistake you can never engineer backwards.

When your first article goes viral without a call to action, you’ve lost your first hundred-something subscribers who’d be genuinely interested in your work. You’ll grow slower, and you’ll be at the mercy of algorithms.

And even though I felt awkward asking my seven readers to subscribe to my non-existing newsletter, it was the best thing I could’ve done for my writing career.

Because the thing is, platforms change. Emails don’t.

If you one day want to sell any digital product, you need an email list. You won’t depend on an algorithm: your readers will see you even if your writing doesn’t appear in their feed.

What you can do now

The good news is that setting up your email list isn’t rocket science. You can do it in less than 30 minutes. Three steps are required: registering on Convertkit, choosing a landing page, and creating a Call-to-Action through which you ask your readers to subscribe to your list.

First, register on Convertkit.

Second, sign up free in the right corner of the website and create a free account. I recommend Convertkit over other email providers because the platform will cost you nothing for your first 1,000 subscribers, and it is optimized for online creators.

Third, pick a landing page. When you set up your landing page, keep in mind: the longer you try to create a well-designed landing page, the less time you’ve left for writing articles.

Especially in the beginning, the appearance of your landing page doesn’t matter much. It’s better done than perfect. Add a picture of yourself to make your page more personal, or a royalty-free image from Pexels, for example.

Then, add a Call-to-Action (CTA) underneath each of your articles

In the beginning, start with a generic CTA: It’s better to start with a good enough CTA than not at all, and you can easily adjust your CTA once you’ve figured out your niche and know what you want to do with your list.

Your first Call-to-Actions can sound like this:

  • “Want to improve X? My newsletter will help you create the Y you need to move towards a Z future.”
  • “Get access to exclusive X content. Subscribe to my free newsletter here.”
  • “Want to stay in touch? Subscribe to my email list.”

If you don’t want to do this now, grab my free 5-day email course on setting up your email list in 20 minutes. Each day you’ll get straight-to-the-point help with exact steps and to-dos on why and how to set up your writing for audience growth.


3. ​​How to Always Start From an Abundance of Ideas

Ideas are the most essential building blocks of articles because the writing can’t even start without having them.

When I started, I feared I’d soon run out of ideas.

I feared sitting in front of a blank page. I worried about writing “too early” about my best ideas and running out of topics afterwards. I doubted I had anything worthy to say.

The thing is, writing isn’t about sitting down in front of a blank page and waiting for the best idea to come.

Most people think they don’t have ideas when in reality, the problem is they don’t train their minds to pay attention to their ideas and then don’t collect their ideas.

If you judge your ideas and don’t capture them with an open mind, they’ll be gone. And without having ideas, it’s impossible to write.

The good news is you don’t have to wait to have more ideas.

Creativity is practice. The more you create, the more creative you’ll become. If you train your brain to develop ideas, they will, at one point, just flow into your life.

What you can do now

In the beginning, you need conscious practice. Ask yourself a couple of times a day what do I want to write about?

Put a sticker in your bathroom, on your fridge, or your phone screensaver. Even if your mind doesn’t have answers in the first place, trust the process.

If you ask yourself these questions five days in a row, you’ll have plenty of ideas to pick from.

There are a couple of things you can do to facilitate this process.

Pay attention to your surroundings, read books, pay attention to your mind, and talk with people.

Most importantly, when a new idea comes into your mind, don’t judge that early idea. You only know if they’re good once you’ve written about them.

If you label your early ideas as “bad ideas,” you tell your brain that it’s wrong to develop new ideas. That way, you hinder your ideation process and make it harder for your brain to come up with a new idea next time. Thus, to generate more ideas, treat your new ideas very gently.

Once the idea is there, note it down, no matter what. You make sure to never again run out of ideas by taking the process into your own hands. That is, having a safe space where you capture and store your ideas.

I’ve experimented with a lot of idea-capturing tools. I used Trello, Notion, an excel sheet, and Milanote. Lately, I’ve discovered and settled for xTiles because the platform combines all features I was looking for.

Here’s what it looks like:

My current idea board xTiles (Screenshot by author).

The lesson is — it’s not about the tool but about your process.

Commit to capturing your first five article ideas in the tool. Some helpful prompts to come up with writing ideas: I used to be Y, this is how I turned into Z (e.g., I Used To Have Social Anxiety. These 4 Mental Shifts Made Me More Confident), What you can learn from Z will change Y (e.g., 3 Resources about Learning that Will Change How You Look at Education), or questions and topics you’re curious about and want to learn more.

The next section will guide you on how to pick the ideas worth writing about.


4. Find Your Writing Niche for Growing an Audience

“How do I find my niche?” is a question I get asked a lot. Many writers think they should have a focus area when they start writing.

And while this gives you some form of security, it’s the wrong thing to do. When you niche down too early, you miss out on growth opportunities. Because you have no data on what resonates with your audience. And you can’t know which topics you love writing about.

Source: Screenshot from my course Writing Online Accelerator, Module 1

When I started, I wrote about anything from relationships, SEO, and intuitive eating. My assumption was I’ll end up writing about love and psychology.

Soon I realized while I love talking about these topics in my podcast and with friends, I don’t like writing about them. Only 20 stories in, when looking at the data, I realized the stories on learning and books perform best AND that they were the ones I loved writing.

Don’t try to niche down when writing your first 30 or 40 articles. Embrace the opportunity only beginning writers have — writing about anything you’re curious about.

Niching down will happen with time if you write about topics that make you curious and monitor the stories that engage your audience.

What you can do now

Open your idea tool (check the previous section if you don’t know what that is) and add five broad themes that you would like to explore (e.g., computer science, biographies, history entrepreneurship).

Then, look at these themes and a couple of specific article ideas by asking yourself for each of them:

  • What could be a specific topic I’m curious to explore?
  • What’s a topic I have strong emotions or opinions about?
  • What’s a question inside this theme that I have found an answer to?

When writing your next articles, commit to picking ideas from different topics. Use the Meta log (more in section 10) to track whether you actually enjoy writing about it.

Once you have published at least 20 articles, look at the data. Sort your articles by clicking on your preferred metrics, for example, views. You will see how many people clicked on the article.

Source: Screenshot from my course Writing Online Accelerator, Module 6

After you’ve published more than 20 articles and filtered by the view, check whether there is an intersection between your top-performing pieces and the ones you love writing about. No? Continue writing and check again after 20 more articles. Yes? You’ve found your niche!


5. How to Write Headlines That Make People Click

If your headline isn’t good enough, no one will read your articles. Your content can be perfect. But you drive the audience into your writing through the title.

The title is the very first thing a reader sees, and online platforms have an infinite amount of content. Thus, if your headline doesn’t stand out from the crowd, online readers will scroll further and pick a title that awakens their curiosity.

As a result, even if you invested hours of work into perfecting your article, you won’t have many readers with a meh headline. No matter how great your content is, you won’t be able to drive an audience into your writing. No one will read your work if your headline isn’t interesting enough.

Your title can literally make or break the success of an article.

Almost no one read my articles in early 2020. It’s no wonder as my headlines were as boring as “The digital gap is increasing — we need to act now!” and “Out of your head and into your body in less than 5 minutes”.

Researching and implementing some headline components in my titles helped me reach more than 2 million readers in less than two years.

If you ever want to be a successful writer, you need to start working on your titles. Because if no one clicks on your heading, you’ll always have zero readers.

The good news is headline writing is a skill you can master.

Once you understand the components of successful headlines, you can create your own engaging titles.

But consistently writing headlines that make people click is more complex than you might think. It requires continuous practice and re-learning.

Six core components will help you craft titles that make people click. If you internalize them and deliberately practice headline writing (more on that in the section below), you’ll be able to create your own highly engaging headlines.

The first component is the reader’s benefit. Great headlines focus on the reader and deliver value either directly or indirectly. It is clear that the writer didn’t write the content to herself, it’s not a journal but something useful for the people. For example, If You Want to Be Rich, Spend Your Time Buying Assets, or The Feynman Technique Can Help You Remember Everything You Read.

The second component is breadth. Choosing a topic that’s appealing to a large audience is usually present in popular headings. While I love writing about education and learning, I also accept that an analysis of Estonia’s education system likely won’t go viral. Whereas the title 9 Micro-Habits That Will Completely Change Your Life in a Year speaks to a very broad audience.

Thirdly, people like sharing things on the internet that either make them look smart or helpful. An article with the title The 7 Emails You Should Send Every Week to Get Ahead in Your Career has a great chance to be widely shared on LinkedIn.

The fourth component is novelty. Don’t try to recycle the old but well-performing headlines because people will realize it. What worked well in the past won’t go viral today. Unless you bring some novelty to the discussion and show your spiky point of view — a view that is slightly controversial and with which some people would disagree. An example of this is Self-improvement has made me worse,

Next, when I did my headline research, I realized headlines that contain proof are likely to perform well. The proof can come from famous people, such as Elon Musk’s 2 Rules For Learning Anything Faster. Or you can also add self-proof as I did with the article This is How I Made My First $30,000 From Writing Online.

Lastly, countless viral articles provoke emotions. They’re either controversial or use powerful words, such as the ones in the gif below. An example of an emotion-provoking headline is Today I Learned Something About My Boyfriend That No Girl Should Ever Have to Discover.

Emotional word bank. Source: Coschedule

What you can do now

Now, knowing the components of well-performing headlines isn’t enough. It’s like reading a book and believing you’re well-prepared for the exam.

To craft headlines that make people click, you need to practice. Headline writing is a skill you can master, but you’ll need to spend time crafting multiple headline variations.

So these are the exact steps you need to craft a high-performing headline.

First, collect the headlines you click on in your idea board (more on that in section 3). They will serve as inspiration to you.

Second, before starting to write an article, ask yourself, “what’s in it for the reader” and “which 2–3 headline components would fit the topic of my article?”

For each article, you write, try to craft ten headline variations as I did in the picture below. Don’t worry about perfecting the title yet; this time, just write what comes into your mind.

Source: Screenshot from the Writing Online Accelerator Module 2

Once you’re ready with the headline variations, pick the one you’d click, or ask your friends or writer buddies to choose for you.

To further boost your chosen headline, I recommend the free version of CoSchedule. Insert your title, and swap words until you reach a score that’s above 70. Repeat this practice for each article you write.

Source: Screenshot from the Writing Online Accelerator Module 2

I know this process can be tiring. But it’s worth it. Keep Ayodeji Awosika’s wise words in mind:

“I’ve written more than 15,000 headlines since I’ve started writing. Only one per cent of them are really good. Those one per cent of headlines I’ve written created 100 percent of my viral successes. Every single morning, I write down 10 ideas for headlines. […] I promise, if you don’t learn how to write good headlines, you’ll never have a career as a blogger. Never. So do I.”


6. This Introduction Technique Will Make People Interested in Your Work

Countless writers start their articles as if they were writing their life stories. Lengthy anecdotes, unrelated information, and a lot of beautifully written fluff.

Online readers are barely interested in such introductions. They clicked the headline because they wished to have something out of the writing, such as advice, entertainment, or a piece of specific information.

Sloppy introductions can destroy the time investment you put into crafting your articles. You convince your readers to click on your story with your headline. But you hook them into the story with your introduction.

An efficient tool for writing engaging introductions is the PAS formula. The acronym stands for Problem, Agitation, and Solution. That’s how you structure your introduction.

In the problem part, you need to pick a painful issue and describe it in one sentence.

In the agitation, you make the problem more specific and more emotional, almost unbearable.

Lastly, in the solution, you offer a way out. You propose a solution.

Here’s an example from one of my articles:

Source: Screenshot from the Writing Online Accelerator Module 4

What you can do now

To write a powerful PAS arrange your introduction into three parts.

In part one, ask yourself: what is the problem I’m trying to solve? Why is it painful for the reader? What is the pain about? You can start with prompts, such as:

  • Have you ever wondered…?
  • Do you ever…?
  • Do you also?
  • Most people face….problem.

In the second part, agitate on the problem. Ask yourself how you can be more specific. Is there a real-life situation that happened to you or to a friend that would fit the context and could help you make the problem more vivid? You can continue with sentences, such as:

  • If you also feel like….it’s likely because…
  • I/ My friend also…insert problem that happened frequently.

Lastly, offer a way out for your readers. Ask yourself: How can I describe the solution briefly? Tell why the article would immensely help the reader. You can close your introduction, for example, with:

  • By….., you’ll….
  • Discovering….helped me…. It’ll also help you with…
  • These are….that you can easily apply in….to….
Source: Screenshot from the Writing Online Accelerator Module 4

7. How You Can Make Your Articles 10x Better With This Clear Editing Blueprint

Have you ever invested too much time into editing your articles?

I know the feeling of desiring the perfect article. I feared of being judged by the online world.

The problem? With this mindset, an article will never be good enough.

Writing is creative work. You’re never done if you aim for perfection, as you will always find something to improve.

At the beginning of my writing journey, I spent 17 hours editing a single article. And the outcome was average. The article only had a few hundred views.

The problem with this mindset is that the time you spend editing is the time you don’t spend writing. I could have spent those 17 hours writing instead of perfecting one single article.

And in the online world, quantity matters. If you publish less, you have fewer chances of going viral. You can think of each article as a lottery ticket. Maybe it’ll take off and bring you exponential growth.

But if you spend hours perfecting your work, you won’t be able to publish more.

To avoid this, define an endpoint for your editing process. I now have a clear structure I follow to know when my article is good enough. I hit publish despite any insecurity, accepting my fear of being judged. Good is better than perfect, and I know the opportunity costs of not starting to write a new article.

What you can do now

Here are the steps I follow when editing my articles. Feel free to steal them, if you struggle to edit the paper in a way that makes you feel content with your work.

First, put the heading in the title case format with this free app by inserting your heading into the “Add your title in here” white space. When you scroll down, you can copy the result. (1 min)

Second, read the text out loud to recognize inconsistencies and check the flow. When you read out loud, you put yourself in the reader’s role, and that way, you can spot flaws in your writing. Delete everything that doesn’t add value to your article. (30 min)

Third, improve the section headings. Think of your section headings as they’d be mini titles of your article: they need to encourage your readers to keep reading. Thus, they should also follow the principles of great headlines — more on that in section four. (5 min)

Fourth, polish your word choice and cut the fluff. Great online writing is simple. You don’t need to use sophisticated words and lengthy sentences to convey deep messages. (5 min)

Fifth, check the grammar with the free version of Grammarly. You can write with flawless grammar even if you’re not a native speaker. Sign up, add the app to your browser as an extension, and enable the grammar check for the platform where you write. (5 min)

Sixth, format the text according to the requirements of the platform. Like most platforms, Medium also has formatting requirements. The most important ones in a nutshell: Put your heading and subheading in the right format. Add section headings. Add section breaks to divide your post into sub-paragraphs. If you quote someone, use the quotation format. Get my Free Medium Formatting Guideline for visual examples. (5 min)


8. How to keep writing no matter what

After a few months without much traction, writing can feel like an aimless, soul-draining activity you can’t get out of your head. A tempting black box that might one day bring you the desired outcome.

You’re barely getting any better, keep repeating the same mistakes, and can’t get enough motivation to write nearly every day. You don’t track how much time you invest in writing, and you’re also unaware of what you actually like writing about.

If you don’t find a solution and continue writing without reflecting, you will either give up writing at some point. Or your writing will always remain mediocre, and you will never reach a broad audience.

You can end up wasting the precious hours you’ve invested and say goodbye to your dreams of becoming a writer.

I’ve almost been there. I didn’t know how to track my writing progress in a meaningful way.

Building on my background in education, I came up with a tool. The goal? Keep getting better at writing while getting my motivation high. This tool can also help you build a consistent, deliberate writing practice.

I call it the writing meta log as it fosters your metacognition skill. In essence, this skill helps you understand the way you’re thinking, and it makes you aware of both your strengths and weaknesses. It helps you create the process that suits your unique needs and supports you in the long run.

This is my meta log from April 2020:

Source: Screenshot from my course Writing Online Accelerator, Module 6

What you can do now

The framework of meta writing log looks like this. You can either create your own in a spreadsheet or get the template free here.

Source: Screenshot from my course Writing Online Accelerator, Module 6

To make the best out of it, fill a line every time you finish your practice. Rely on these three principles to make the best out of the meta writing log:

  1. Write it for yourself. No one will read it.
  2. Use it every time you write: the longer you keep collecting data, the more useful it will be.
  3. Highlight your critical lessons, for example, by bolding them.

As an extra motivation, you can reward yourself for days you’ve filled this out straight. You can invite yourself for a coffee or treat yourself with something you enjoy. It can be a hot bath or a long walk in nature. It totally depends on your preferences.

If you use the metalog consistently, you’ll discover a pattern and see which topics flow well and which are the ones you don’t prefer that much. You’ll reflect after every writing session and through it, you’ll develop a writing process that serves you the best.


9. The Only 9 Tools I Use to Write Great Articles in Three Hours

Most people think they need expensive equipment and fancy tools to become professional writers. Yet, that’s not the case.

I only rely on nine tools, and most of them are for free. Here’s the list:

  1. The free version of BlockSite Extension disables websites at the time you want. I blocked LinkedIn, Gmail, Slack, and Facebook during my writing time (7AM–10AM).
  2. BeFocused is one of my favourite productivity tools. I use it as a game against myself. I work in 50-minute intervals. Before I start the timer, I set an intention (e.g. editing an article and hitting publish in 50-minutes). The next 50-minutes require full focus to beat the clock.
  3. I bought noise-cancelling headphones that help me quickly get into and remain in the flow state. This way, I’m not distracted by any sound and I even enjoy writing on a train.
  4. I collect and manage my ideas with xTiles. More detailed description of this is in section three.
  5. English is my second language, so I use Grammarly for (mostly) mistake-free writing. I got the paid version, but the free version also does a good job.
  6. Readwise and Roam help me optimize my writing process. Too complex to explain in a bullet, but I share it in my writing course.
  7. For correct title case creation, I use the free Title Case Converter.
  8. Power Thesaurus helps me expand my vocabulary and increase my word choice. It’s a fast, convenient and free online word bank. I use the free chrome extension to have in-text suggestions.
  9. CoSchedule turns good headlines into great ones. Check out section five for more details.

What you can do now

Check out the tools that you consider the most helpful for your current stage and start working with them.

But remember, the most important “tool” for your journey is your undisturbed writing time.


In Essence

Writing has changed my life.

It has created career opportunities I never dreamed of. I’ll be, for example, a speaker at the European Union Education Summit in Brussels this winter.

It’s my lifelong learning tool. I discover something new about myself or the world every time I write. It has advanced my industry knowledge, altered my physical and mental health levels, and improved my relationships.

Writing is one of the most rewarding habits you can build. And I know from experience writing online isn’t only for writers.

  • It’s for anyone who wants to grow as an individual. You can clarify your thinking and become a lifelong learner through writing.
  • It’s for anyone who wants to reach more people. Sharing your thoughts online enables you to reach an insane amount of people.
  • It’s for anyone who wants to accelerate their professional life. With every new article you write, you show the online world the expertise you have in a given field. People who’re interested in your expertise will pay attention.
  • It’s for anyone who wants to meet and exchange with like-minded people. In the internet era, you don’t have to stick to your local communities to build connections.

If you’re still here, you know all the components you need to kickstart your writing journey.

  • Your mindset to fuel sustainable growth
  • Your email list to build an audience
  • Your ideation process to never run out of writing ideas
  • Your headlines to drive people to your work
  • Your introductions to hook your readers in
  • Your editing process to avoid perfectionism
  • Your tools to make technology work in your favor
  • Your ability to reflect to see the bigger picture and improve deliberately

If you’re just starting, this article can be a lot to digest. But no worries. You don’t need to feel overwhelmed. You can revisit this article at any time and progress at your own pace.

Work on one section for at least a week. Then move on to the next one. If you’re at the very beginning of your journey, I suggest you start with creating your idea board and then learn to sit down and write regularly. Then, focus on headline practice, and set up an email list.

If you want to level up and commit, join the waitlist for the next WOA cohort (scholarships available). In the course, we will cover all of this in more depth. As an education expert, I’ll guide you through practical tasks, and you’ll leave the cohort with three high-quality articles reviewed by experienced editors and by me.

The course is for you if you’d like to learn from someone who doesn’t only have expertise in the field of the skill but also teaching. Because no matter how experienced someone is at cooking, writing, painting, or photography, their course will be useless if they don’t know how to teach.


Join the waitlist for the next Writing Online Accelerator cohort

Bonus: All my free resources in one place

I’m here to help you. So below, you find a list of all the free resources I’ve created for writing online.

If there’s something else that you’d love to be on this list, reply to one of my emails with what you want.

  • 5-day writing course on how to attract an audience online
  • Free Medium Formatting Guideline
  • Inspiration board to collect the inspirational content you consume
  • Writing Meta-Log template to reflect and track your writing process

If you’d like to read more on the topics of this article, check out the articles below:

  1. How You Can Write with the Right Mindset to Fuel Sustainable Growth
  2. The Simple Hack for Audience Growth Many New Writers Miss out On
  3. I Used to Run out of Writing Ideas. This Repeatable 3-Step Process Helped.
  4. How to Easily Find Your Writing Niche for Growing an Audience
  5. 6 Principles That Helped Me Write Effective Headlines
  6. How to Master the Most Important Yet Underrated Writing Skill
  7. This Introduction Technique Can Make People Read What You Write
  8. The 51-Minute Editing Framework to Feel Confident When Publishing Your Articles
  9. The Only 9 Tools I Use to Write Great Articles in Three Hours
  10. How the Meta Log Can Turn You Into a Better Writer

Other articles I’ve written on writing:

  1. This is How I Made My First $30,000 From Writing Online
  2. How to Create like Elizabeth Gilbert
  3. How a Leftover Graveyard Will Make You Edit Without Mercy
  4. Stephen King’s 8 Tips Can Improve Your Writing and Editing
  5. The Two Learning Curves First Time Writers Need to Master

A very special thanks to Eszter Brhlik for co-creating this article with me.

Filed Under: ✍🏽 Online Creators Tagged With: Editing, Writing

These 8 Unusual Strategies Helped Me Write Consistently For +2 Years

August 22, 2022 by Eva Keiffenheim

And build a loyal online audience.

Photo lya Pavlov on Unsplash

Writing consistently is the most important yet hardest part of building an online audience.

If you’re starting out, you’re writing in the void. You feel as if nobody is interested in your work. You start to question why you’re even spending the time on it.

I’ve almost given up hundreds of times. I’ve spent months in the process, not knowing whether my writing will ever attract readers. I’ve written 40 articles before my first story went viral back in 2020.

Fast forward two years, and I have an email list of +4K subscribers and +27K followers on Medium.

Most writers give up when they don’t see much traction. If you really want to build an online audience, don’t be one of them.

If you can keep writing when no one seems to bother about your work, the odds are high that you’ll attract an online audience one day.

In the last 2 years, I’ve kept writing and improving. The strategies below are the ones that have helped me the most. They can help you stick to writing too.


1. Knowing that attracting an audience isn’t linear

Most writers hope that after they’ve published their first or second article, people will read it. For all of the about 50 successful online writers I’ve talked to in the past two years, this was not the case.

Sinem Günel helped me start with the right mindset — don’t expect anything all before I’ve written and published 100 articles.

I wanted to give myself that range to try, fail and figure out what works and what doesn’t.

Because the thing is, success in writing isn’t linear. If you keep writing a lot, you’ll likely experience sudden growth. One of your articles will get traction and tens of thousands of people will read it.

Having the idea of exponential growth in the back of my mind saved me.

I know it feels lonesome to keep writing when nothing happens. You can get anxious, stressed, and desperate. All your feelings are valid.

But if you hang in there and keep up with a consistent writing practice long enough and keep learning and improving (with the strategies outlined below), more and more people will discover and read your work.

Source: Screenshot from the Writing Online Accelerator Module 1

2. Knowing your why

The second thing that helped me become a consistent writer was knowing why I write.

My why changed.

When I started, I wrote a very vague why in my bullet journal: “I want to be a writer. I’ll sit down and write every day.”

Some weeks in, I learned more about what really motivated me and added: “I write because it’s the best learning habit. I want to support others. I write because I want to make a full-time income through writing.”

It doesn’t matter why you start but knowing the reason why you want to spend time writing will help you stick with it in the long run.

You have a lot of competing priorities in your life — your job, hobbies, friends, and family. So why do you want to spend your precious time writing online?


3. Write what you’re curious about

Initially, I forced myself to write about topics that were popular on this platform at that time — productivity, finance advice, and relationship habits.

My writing motivation vanished. Sitting down to write became harder and harder. I almost stop.

It wasn’t until I allowed myself to follow my curiosity that writing became joyful again.

If you’re passionate about a topic, your readers will notice. Within the right framing (great headline, solid introduction, clear and reader-centric story structure), you can make even the most niche topic interesting.

For example, I was deeply fascinated by the Zettelkasten technique and how to apply it in RoamResearch. I wrote a guide about it. The article attracted +16K readers, led to 512$ earnings, and about ten clients that requested a 1-on-1 session to get coached on their knowledge management.

I would’ve never written that article if I hadn’t followed my curiosity.

I still stick to this principle. When I looked at my idea board on xTiles this morning, I thought, “What am I curious about? Which topic would I like to explore?” I then chose the metaverse and education.

Even though your niche isn’t among the popular topics, you can make it work by making it helpful for the reader.

If you want to write consistently, write about what you want to learn or think about.


4. Being your biggest cheerleader

Now, this advice might seem weird. But I’m sharing it because it’s one of the factors that has helped me a lot.

When I started writing, I prepared a motivational audio recording. I talked about why I want to be a writer and how it’ll feel once I’ve attracted an audience. I told myself what I must do daily to achieve this (sit down before work every morning for two hours no matter what).

In the first months of writing, I listened to that audio almost every day.

Self-recorded affirmations can become a powerful motivator. You don’t even have to believe in positive thinking, etc. Recording yourself can serve as a reminder, and anchor, to prioritize what you want to do.


5. Keep on learning

You can only improve your writing if you write. Don’t get lost in reading or learning about writing instead of doing the work.

But once you do have a regular writing habit, learning from the people who’ve already done it can level up your writing practice.

These are the most useful books I’ve read are about writing:

  • On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
  • Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott
  • The Art and Business of Online Writing by Nicolas Cole

Taking writing courses can further accelerate your writing skills. I took courses by Tim Denning, Sinem Günel, Niklas Göke, and Tom Kuegler. And I’m glad I learned from the people who’ve walked the talk.

But the most important thing is to sit down and actually do the writing.

That’s why I created the outcome-focused online course where you learn and write. In the Writing Online Accelerator, you don’t only sit in front of pre-recorded videos. You’re part of a highly-motivated peer group.

I and two other editors will give you 1-on-1 feedback. By the end of the course, you’ll have 3 high-quality articles online. If you want a free sneak peek into the material, subscribe for my free workshop here.


6. Build support groups and learn from others

To make writing less lonesome, reach out to fellow writers and start a group where you exchange ideas, help each other with headline practice, or even edit each other’s articles.

I’ve relied on multiple slack groups in the last two years, which have been extremely helpful in my journey.

Whenever you read something from the writers you like, tell them. Comment on their articles and share what you love about their work. Connect on LinkedIn or other social media platforms, offer help, and ask for their advice.


7. Have a metalog

If I had to name one tool that has kept me going and improved my writing it’s the meta log. It will support you in establishing a deliberate, consistent writing practice that will make you a better writer.

I’ve invented this tool to improve my writing while keeping my motivation. The meta log is rooted in metacognition, a skill essential for learning, according to educational scientists.

According to research, three steps are necessary for unlocking your metacognition: planning, monitoring, and evaluating.

I’ve built the meta log with these principles in mind, which can help you build a consistent, deliberate writing practice.

Here’s my template:

Source: Screenshot from my course Writing Online Accelerator, Module 6

Fill a line every time you finish your practice.

If you use it consistently, you’ll discover a pattern and see which topics flow well and which are the ones you don’t prefer that much.

Three principles for using the meta writing log:

  1. Write this for yourself. It can be messy.
  2. The longer you keep collecting data, the more useful it will be.
  3. Bold your key insights to highlight your critical lessons.
My meta log from April 2020 looked like this. Source: Screenshot from my course Writing Online Accelerator, Module 6

Remember the essence

It’s challenging to write consistently in the long run. But you can build up your unique support system to help.

The following things kept me on my journey:

  • Knowing writing is exponential
  • Being aware of why I write
  • Reading and listening to my affirmations
  • Continuously learning and improving
  • Reaching out to fellow writers
  • Relying on my support groups on slack
  • Having a meta-writing log

Take what feels right and ignore the rest. Not all these things will work. Experiment to find a way that supports you to write consistently.


Ready to accelerate your writing journey and build an online audience?

Subscribe for a free 5-day course on how you can set up the single most important thing writers usually forget to attract a large audience online. With a total time investment of only 20 minutes.

Filed Under: ✍🏽 Online Creators Tagged With: advice, Ideas, inspiration, Writing

The Only 9 Tools I Use to Write Great Articles in Three Hours

August 7, 2022 by Eva Keiffenheim

They will help you improve your writing process.

Eva Keiffenheim (Credit: Florentina Olareanu/Golden Hour Pictures).

When I started writing online, I thought you need the best equipment and tools to become a professional writer.

I got distracted by all the options for upgrading my work setup. I believed you would need to invest plenty of money to write great articles.

In the past two years, I experimented with all the popular options out there and settled for these ten. Most of them are free, and they help me craft an article in less than three hours. They can do the same for you.


1) This browser extension helps you not get distracted

Writing with full focus is a superpower many people lack. With distractions one browser window away, thinking and writing become a struggle.

In the beginning, whenever I didn’t know how to continue a story, I’d impulsively open a new tab with LinkedIn to distract myself. This wasn’t a conscious choice. Distraction just seemed to happen to me.

The following tool has been very helpful in overcoming the distraction habit. I searched for it after reading Cal Newport’s ‘Deep Work,’ and I continue to use it every day.

BlockSite Extension disables websites at the time you want. There must be many similar alternatives, but I use the free version and I love it.

How this tool helps you write great articles fast:

What are the websites or apps that distract you from writing? Add all sites that prevent you from doing the work.

I block the below sites 07:00 am — 10:30 am every day so I can focus on undistracted creation time.

Blocked sites from 07:00 am — 10:30 am (Credit: Screenshot by Eva Keiffenheim of BlockSite)

Depending on your schedule and work, the sites and timing will look different for you. Once you’ve found the right settings for you, you don’t have to look at it again.


2) An easy way to retain focus and motivation

Do you know that satisfying feeling of completing a task in the allocated time?

With writing, this is tricky. Because unless you define what “completion” means, writing has no end. Similar to an artist painting a picture, you can always improve.

You often can’t anticipate how long it will take you to write an article. Some are more research and thought-heavy and require more time; some (like this one) are easy to write because you already know what you want to say.

A cornerstone habit in my writing process is defining “done” and sticking to it. If you always finish your writing time with the feeling of “I should write more,” it’s tough to keep coming back to it and stay consistent.

If you write too much, it can ruin your motivation. I finish writing before I’m exhausted. That way I’m quitting at a point of deep satisfaction (by flow state and deep work) and I’m excited to get back to my desk and write the next morning.

In my writing world, “done” is determined by undistracted writing time. While I can’t fully influence how many words I type in a given time, I can determine how much time I want to spend writing.

BeFocused is the tool that helps me keep track of it. In essence, it’s a free productivity timer. You have quick and easy access in the toolbar, can track how many sessions you completed, and time your pauses.

BeFocused productivity timer in my toolbar (Credit: Screenshot by Eva Keiffenheim of BeFocused)

How this tool helps you write great articles fast:

How do you know you’ve achieved your writing goals for the day? Set a realistic writing time goal. Then, stick to it.

I write three times for fifty minutes. When I sit at my desk (mostly at 7 am) I open my Spotify writing playlist (more on that later) and click on “start” in BeFocused. This combination signals to my brain it’s time to get into writing mode.

After each 50-minute interval, I take a five-minute break. I make myself a tea or coffee, walk around in my apartment, do some stretches, look outside the window, or clean some stuff.

If you can, don’t check your phone during breaks, but put it into flight mode in a different room.


3) What I do to get into a writing flow

Flow states are your sweet spot of peak performance. It’s where your writing magic happens.

And yet, I used to find it difficult to get into “the zone.” And once I was in there, it was a fragile state. I was annoyed by every distraction. I snapped at my partner when he asked me a question, I was angry at the postman when the doorbell rang so he delivered a parcel, I was even annoyed by birds.

It wasn’t until I bought noise-canceling headphones that my flow states became the new normal.

I got these ones from Bose. I know how privileged I am to be able to spend money on optimizing noise. Likely there are cheaper noise-canceling alternatives that do the same.

How this tool helps you write great articles fast:

A steady noise input can help you ease into a flow state. I put them on whenever I start to write. I then choose one song from my Spotify writing playlist and put it on repeat.

Since I use these headphones I get into flow states wherever I am, even in the backseat of a car during a 3-hour drive or in a public park. They help me be in fully focused writing mode whenever I want to.


4) Collect and manage ideas with xTiles

When I started writing, I felt I had nothing worthy to say. I thought I’d soon run out of article ideas. Two years and 300 articles later, I know I was wrong about both.

If you don’t kill your baby ideas but capture them, you never run out of writing ideas. To capture and manage my ideas I use xTiles. It’s a merge of Notion and Miro that helps you keep a visual overview.

xTiles for managing my ideas (Credit: Screenshot by Eva Keiffenheim of xTiles)

How this tool helps you write great articles fast:

Collect every idea you have. This will help you save time in your writing process. You don’t start with a blank page but can choose out of an abundance of ideas.

I have a bookmark in my browser reading bar. Whenever an idea crosses my mind while writing, I type it down and add context or links. If I’m on the go, I do the same from my phone.

Your best ideas arise when you don’t expect them. The most important part is to have a capturing tool. With the right system, you’ll always have enough ideas.


5) The lifesaver for non-native English speakers to publish with confidence

“But what if my English isn’t good enough?” is something I often hear from students in my writing course.

I shared the fear. Growing up in rural Germany I never felt comfortable talking in English. But the thing is: many of your readers aren’t English natives as well. For them, it will be easier to understand your articles.

But if you’re still feeling insecure (which I definitely did), the following tool can have your back.

Grammarly suggests corrections for your grammar and word mistakes, helping you communicate effectively and as you intend.

Grammarly’s suggestions for this article (Credit: Screenshot by Eva Keiffenheim of Grammarly)

How this tool helps you write great articles fast:

Use Grammarly once your article is ready to be edited. It will improve your articles and ease you from language worries.

I write my articles in Roam and paste them into a language formatting tool and into Medium drafts. I format my article in Medium (headline, subheadline, section headings, correct image attribution, spacing, and a call to action at the end) and then run a Grammarly check. I include all “correctness” suggestions and see whether there are useful hints for clarity, delivery, and engagement.


6) The power engine behind my idea-to-paper process

There are five steps to my creative workflow: seek, consume, capture, connect, and write. Readwise and Roam help me optimize the capturing and connecting process.

Readwise is an online service that imports all your article and book highlights into other software. You can do a ton of things with Readwise, but I mainly use it for importing my kindle highlights into my Roam database. Roam is an online workspace for organizing and evaluating your knowledge.

I used to have an entire workflow around Zettelkasten and Roam system and I still do.

How these tools help you write great articles fast:

I see the Readwise and Roam combination as my curated google. When I write an article about creativity I type # howtobecreative or # creativity I find any related book highlight, article, or personal thought. I tried Obsidian for a couple of weeks but switched back to Roam.

Once you have a clear idea-to-paper process you can write and create faster. You no longer waste time searching for sources. Instead of using my brain to browse through books and digital bookmark notes, you have everything in one place.


7) Increasing word variety with this free extension

Ever found yourself repeating the same word thrice? Especially as a non-native speaker it can be tough to come up with synonyms.

Power Thesaurus helps you expand your vocabulary and increase your word choice. It’s a fast, convenient and free online word bank.

Power Thesaurus helps you find synonyms (Credit: Screenshot by Eva Keiffenheim of Power Thesaurus)

How this tool helps you write great articles fast:

Whenever I’m editing an article and feel as if I’ve repeated the same word too often, I highlight the word, click on the powerthesaurus icon and check for synonyms. If there’s a word I like, I use it.


8) Write powerful headlines with the free headline analyzer

Composing great headlines is the most underrated writing skill. You can have the most amazing story. But if your headline sucks, nobody will read your work.

The following tool won’t magically make your headlines click-worthy. And yet, CoSchedule can turn good headlines into great ones. The tool checks your word balance, clarity, reading grade level, and many other factors to calculate a headline score.

Coming up with a headline for this article (Credit: Screenshot by Eva Keiffenheim of HeadlineStudio)

How this tool helps you write great articles fast:

After you’ve written a couple of headline variations, paste your favourite one inside the tool and start to experiment. You can use powerthesaurus (the tool from above) to come up with better words.

Once I have a +70 score and feel confident, I paste the headline into my Roam and start writing. I do this before I write an article as the headline will determine the structure.


9) Format your titles in the right way

Title case is the correct style for article headlines. You capitalize every word except articles (a, an, the), prepositions (in, on, for, up, …), and coordinating conjunctions (and, or, but, …).

There are some rule exceptions and luckily, you don’t need to memorize them.

For correct title case creation, I rely on the free Title Case Converter.

Title Case Converter for correct spelling (Credit: Screenshot by Eva Keiffenheim of Title Case Converter)

How this tool helps you write great articles fast:

Editing can become a never-ending process. This tool is one step inside my efficient five-step editing process. All you need to do is copy and paste the title to get the correct spelling.


In Summary

While these tools won’t turn you into a professional writer overnight, they will help you write better articles in a shorter time.

BlockSite, BeFocused, and noise-cancelling headphones help you stay productive and ease into flow. Software such as xTiles, Readwise, and Roam, optimize your idea-to-paper process. And lastly, Grammarly, CoSchedule, Title Case Converter, and Power Thesaurus improve your editing process.

But most importantly, use this article as inspiration, not as a blueprint. Pick the tools that seem helpful and ignore the rest. The quintessence to becoming a better writer is to write.


Ready to accelerate your writing journey and build an online audience?

Subscribe for a free 5-day course on how you can set up the single most important thing writers usually forget to attract a large audience online. With a total time investment of only 20 minutes.

Filed Under: ✍🏽 Online Creators Tagged With: advice, Editing, Ideas, inspiration, Writing

This Introduction Technique Can Make People Read What You Write

August 5, 2022 by Eva Keiffenheim

A foolproof framework for great introductions.

Photo by Cookie the Pom on Unsplash

If you write bad introductions, all of your writing time is wasted.

People clicked on your article because you’ve written a great headline. But if you disappoint them with a lengthy beginning, they’ll never return for more. Instead, they’ll remember that your articles don’t deliver on your catchy headlines.

And the worst thing is that it won’t matter whether your main content is excellent.

You can be the most helpful writer with an engaging story. You can say the wisest words and give the best advice. But if your introduction sucks, nobody will read the rest.

Many writers don’t get the intros right. They ramble around life stories, unrelated facts, and unnecessary anecdotes until the reader is finally gone.

But writing a bulletproof introduction isn’t rocket science.

Copywriters created an effective tool to hook readers into an article. The PAS technique will help you write introductions that make people read your writing. And return for more.

In this article, we’ll look at the three parts of excellent introductions so you can replicate the process and make people read everything you write.


1) Problem— Be very clear about the problem

Readers click on your article because they want you to solve one of their problems. They turn to you for advice, inspiration, or guidance. They won’t waste time reading your work if they don’t get what they want.

To be respectful of your reader’s time, start with their problem in mind.

The better you describe the problem, the more you can show that you understand it. And that’s how you can quickly build trust with your readers.

You don’t only assume the problem of your readers; you exactly know it. As if you’ve been reading their mind and saying: I know you have a problem, and I’m here to help you.

See how I started this article:

“If you write bad introductions, all of your writing time is wasted.”

If you’re a writer, you don’t want to lose a reader. I touched a pain point you’d want to solve. This is the Problem part of the PAS acronym.

Now you

What are you trying to solve for the reader in your current draft?

If you don’t yet have a draft, what solution are you aware of that can help people? The problem can be anything you’re good at and know a solution to. It can even be about writing emails or recommending books.

Pick a painful problem and write one sentence where you describe it as vividly as you can.

Here’re a few examples to inspire you in your process:

  • “Most people see email as a strictly transactional tool, using it only when they need something or owe someone something. That’s exactly why you should use it to stand out.” — The 7 Emails You Should Send Every Week to Get Ahead in Your Career
  • “Books don’t magically make you live the good life. You can read a book a week without changing at all.” — 3 Binge-Worthy Books for Life-Long Learners
Source: Screenshot from the Writing Online Accelerator Module 4

2) Agitate — Make the problem more painful

In the second part of the technique, you make the problem so itchy that your readers can’t click away without finding out the solution. That’s that Agitation part of the PAS.

This is how I did it in this article:

“And the worst thing is that it won’t matter whether your main content is great.

You can be the most helpful writer with an engaging story. You can say the wisest words and give the best advice. But if your introduction sucks, nobody will read the rest.

Many writers don’t get the intros right. They ramble around life stories, unrelated facts, and unnecessary anecdotes until the reader is finally gone.”

Here the problem becomes almost alive. It’s filled with emotions and specificity. The aim of the agitation is to make the readers feel that they desperately need to solve that problem. If they don’t, it’ll deeply affect them.

You turn the problem from ‘bad’ to ‘worse’ and describe why it’s so terrible.

You can think of the problem part as a fact and the agitation as the vivid emotional background that comes with it. In the intro of this article, the problem became terrible because the writer wasted time and their knowledge is lost.

You can describe what the problem feels like. Or, if it fits your context, you can add studies and statistics to show your readers the possible consequences and the scale of the issue.

Now you

Make the problem more specific and more emotional. In the Problem part, you described the issue. In the Agitation, it’s time to paint it with vivid colours.

Ask yourself:

  • Why is this problem so bad?
  • What will happen if the problem isn’t solved?
  • How can I make this feel more painful?
  • How can I depict a realistic scenario for the reader?
  • Which emotional words would fit the problem?
  • How did I feel when I faced a similar situation and didn’t have a solution?
Source: Screenshot from the Writing Online Accelerator Module 4

3) Solution— Here’s how you offer a way out

The last element of the PAS framework is the Solution. After building up so much tension, you must provide your readers with a cure.

Here’s how I did it in the introduction of this piece:

“But writing a bulletproof introduction isn’t rocket science.

Copywriters created an effective tool to hook readers into an article. The PAS — Problem, Agitation, Solution — technique will help you write introductions that will make people read everything from you. And return for more.

In this article, we’ll look at the three parts of excellent introductions so you can replicate the process and make people read everything you write.”

Remember that you don’t have to solve the problem in the introduction. You’ll have plenty of time for that in the main part. So be short and snappy.

Your task in the intro is to promise a realistic and accessible solution. Your readers should feel that if they keep reading, their problem will be solved. To take the solution one step further, you can briefly describe the outcome. Explain what will change in your readers’ lives after solving this specific problem.

Now you

After you’ve vividly described the problem, it’s time for resolution. Show the reader that there’s a solution, and your article will deliver it.

Be empathetic and offer your readers a way out.

Summarise the proposed solution promptly before entering it in-depth. You have the whole article to explain the cure for the problem. And if your readers will want to solve the problem, they’ll likely stay until the end of the article.

Source: Screenshot from the Writing Online Accelerator Module 4

Remember the essence

To write bulletproof introductions, you can rely on the PAS framework.

Describe the Problem and highlight the pain in the first few sentences. Start a new paragraph to push the issue further by making it more specific and emotional. Agitate until it’s almost unbearable. The readers should feel desperate to get to know the solution.

To ease the pain, offer a way out. Your article will be the cure for the problem. If people read the whole piece, they’ll have an implementable, straight-to-the-point Solution.


Ready to accelerate your writing journey and build an online audience?

Subscribe for a free 5-day course on how you can set up the single most important thing writers usually forget to attract a large audience online. With a total time investment of only 20 minutes.

Filed Under: ✍🏽 Online Creators Tagged With: advice, Writing

The 51-Minute Editing Framework to Feel Confident When Publishing Your Articles

August 1, 2022 by Eva Keiffenheim

A clear blueprint to improve your writing.

Photo by Vadim Sherbakov on Unsplash

Have you ever spent hours editing your article, wondering when it’s finally good enough?

Most writers forget the opportunity cost of editing. The more time you spend editing your article, the later you start writing a new one.

I used to try to make my work perfect. I spent 10+ hours editing. In the end, I had an average article with a few hundred views. With that time, I could’ve written at least three new articles.

You can think of every new article you publish as a lottery ticket. The more you have, the more chance you have to go viral or semi-viral with some of them. And this matters because you need more exposure if you want to build an audience.

Fast way forward, and I have a structure that helps me know my articles are “good enough” within 51 minutes. I follow these exact steps to edit my articles, and when I’m done, I hit publish.

My work will never be perfect. But it’s good, and I can publish more.

Here’s my bulletproof editing process you can follow to save hours of work.


1. You’ll need to pay attention to this (1 min)

If you’d like to get curation on this platform, you have to use the title case format in your headings.

Format your titles with this free app every time you edit your work. Your maximum time investment for this step is 1 min.


2. Be the reader of your work (30 mins)

To put yourself in the reader’s role, read out loud what you’ve written. This way you’ll be able to spot inconsistencies in the flow of your work.

I know it sounds strange. My husband used to laugh at me when I was reading my articles loud at 7 am.

You might feel awkward about listening to your own voice. Maybe you’re insecure about your pronunciation, or don’t want the people around you to hear what you’re working on. It’s indeed hard to push your limits and start doing this exercise, but it’s powerful and will immensely help you.

Delete here everything you don’t need.

Helpful questions you can think about to make your work easier:

  • Do I repeat something? The shorter the better.
  • Does my logic make sense?
  • Is it reasonable for anyone looking at the evidence I’ve provided to come to the conclusion I’ve come to?
  • Is each paragraph/section directly related to the one that comes before it and the one that comes after it? If not, are they separated by a header or divider?
  • Does each paragraph’s opening sentence logically follow the previous sentence’s closing paragraph?

Push yourself to spend no more than 30 minutes on this step. Read your work only once.

This is the most challenging step of the whole editing process, and you might feel frustrated about deleting parts of your article that are close to you. To make this easier, I have my “editing graveyard.” It’s a document where I paste sentences and paragraphs I’d otherwise delete.

Source: Screenshot from the Writing Online Accelerator Module 5

3. Section headings are just like your headline (5 mins)

After you’ve read out loud your work for fluency and clarity, it’s time to take a look at your section headings and improve them.

To hook your readers in, it’s not enough to write great headlines.

Think about each of your section headings as mini titles. You still need to convince your readers that it’s worth their time to keep on reading.

In this part, for example, I could’ve just written: “Improve your section headings.” Instead, I opted for “Section headings are just like your headline” to make the title more engaging.

You can make your section headings more interesting by:

  • Using power words
  • Relying on metaphors
  • Implementing 1–2 of the six headline qualities

In a nutshell, great headlines:

  • Focus on the readers and deliver some benefit — If You Want to Be Rich, Spend Your Time Buying Assets
  • Are broad enough to attract a large audience — 9 Micro-Habits That Will Completely Change Your Life in a Year
  • Enable the reader to share it with others because the article either makes them look smart or helpful — The 7 Emails You Should Send Every Week to Get Ahead in Your Career
  • Bring some novelty in your point of view — Self-improvement has made me worse
  • Display either famous people or self-proof — Elon Musk’s 2 Rules For Learning Anything Faster
  • Evoke emotions — Today I Learned Something About My Boyfriend That No Girl Should Ever Have to Discover)

4. Polish your word choice (4 mins)

The rule of thumb of online writing is: the simpler, the better.

You can unclutter your writing by thinking of these rules:

  1. Active voice instead of passive
  2. Delete the word “that” 90% of the time
  3. Cut adverbs
  4. Simpler words and no jargon
  5. Cut the fluff

To master polishing your word choice, I use this article as a checklist. If you’ve done it a couple of times, you no longer need the article and do it by heart.

Don’t get lost in the details.

Every minute you spend editing, you don’t spend writing.


5. Don’t worry if you aren’t a native (5 mins)

My first language is German. In school, I was a below-average language student. When I started writing I worried my English language skills weren’t good enough to write online.

The thing is, there are countless tools non-natives can rely on to write with flawless grammar. I opted for Grammarly.

The tool improves your writing and helps you learn grammar along the way. I use the paid version, but you can do a lot with the free version already.

You can integrate the free version of the tool into your browser as follows:

First, you want to sign-up.

Source: Screenshot taken by the author

Second, add the extension to the browser:

Source: Screenshot taken by the author

Third, enable writing suggestions for the platform where you write

Source: Screenshot taken by the author

After integrating Grammarly into your browser, go through your text and implement the grammar suggestions. Focus on the correctness category (the red one) and ignore the app’s clarity, engagement, and delivery functions.

Not being a native can also bring benefits. You won’t fall into the trap of crafting fluffy sentences and using overly sophisticated words.


6. Follow the formatting guidelines (5 mins)

Most platforms have some formatting requirements.

Wherever you write, make sure to inform yourself about the formatting rules. You can either do this by observing the pieces and discovering similarities. Or look for the requirements either on the about page, in the submission guidelines, or the FAQ section.

Here’s what you need to pay attention to on this platform. You can read the bullets below or download this cheat sheet as a PDF to always get the formatting right.

Headline Optimization

  • Is your headline appealing enough? Does it make the reader click?
  • Your reader will always consider, “What’s in it for me in the article?
  • Use “You” instead of “I.”
  • No exclamation marks.
  • All initial letters are BIG.
  • Numbers are numerals: “5” instead of “Five”

Subtitle Optimization

  • Always write a subtitle. It can impress your readers and make them click on your story.

The picture

  • Always use an attractive picture as a heading.
  • Make sure it’s a high-quality picture, and you have the right to use it + mentioned the source/owner of the picture.
  • Use horizontal pictures — no vertical photos!
  • Don’t choose the smallest option for images — go for the bigger ones.
The correct formatting of a title, subtitle, and cover image. Source: Screenshot from the Writing Online Accelerator Module 5

Section breaks

Make use of section breaks to divide your post into sub-paragraphs.

Use subtitles

Use T1 and T2 title formatting to properly structure your text.

Use short paragraphs

Short paragraphs ensure a better reading experience. They help you to have more white space in your text, which is also a benefit for the reader.

Quotes

When using quotes, make sure you use the right quote formatting.

The end

Tell your reader what to do or why your post is relevant at the end of your article.

Call-to-Action (CTA)

To build your email list and grow your audience, include a CTA at the end of each post.

For example, the CTA of this article is: Ready to accelerate your writing journey and build an online audience? Subscribe for a free 5-day course on how you can set up the single most important thing writers usually forget to attract a large audience online. With a total time investment of only 20 minutes.

Tags

  • Always use the five tags.
  • Use a mixture of more & less popular tags that represent the topic of your article.
  • Don’t go too niche, and don’t invent your own tags!
  • If your goal is to become a Top Writer on Medium, make sure to use the same tags several times but keep in mind: the tag still. has to be a match for the story.
Source: Screenshot from the Writing Online Accelerator Module 5

Now You

After you finish writing your next article, set a timer to 51 minutes. Try to complete all six editing steps in one go.

Push yourself to read your work only once in each step. It’s hard, but if you’d like to publish more articles, you have to learn to work faster.

The more you’ll practice this, the easier it’ll get.


Before you leave

Now you have a bulletproof editing process you can rely on every time you write an article.

To refresh your memory, these are the steps you’ll want to follow:

  1. Format title in title case (1 min)
  2. Read out loud for fluency & clarity (30 min)
  3. Improve your section headings (5 min)
  4. Polish your word choice (5 min)
  5. Grammarly check (5 min)
  6. Formatting check (5 min)

But your most important takeaway should be to not edit for hours.

Perfectionism in editing can kill your creativity and consistency. It also comes with opportunity costs: the longer you edit an article, the later you’ll start writing a new one.

If you’d like to be a successful online writer, it’s not enough to make people read your work. You need to break free from platforms and build your community.


Ready to accelerate your writing journey and build an online audience?

Subscribe for a free 5-day course on how you can set up the single most important thing writers usually forget to attract a large audience online. With a total time investment of only 20 minutes.

Filed Under: ✍🏽 Online Creators Tagged With: Editing, Writing

6 Principles That Helped Me Write Effective Headlines

July 22, 2022 by Eva Keiffenheim

Over 2 million people clicked on my headlines after I improved them using these techniques

Photo by 43 Clicks North on Unsplash

If your headline isn’t good enough, no one will read your articles. Your content can be perfect. But you drive the audience into your writing through the title.

No one clicked on my articles in early 2020.

My headlines were as shitty as “The digital gap is increasing — we need to act now!” and “Out of your head and into your body in less than 5 minutes”.

I didn’t think of the reader when crafting my headlines, and I believed recycling older, but well-performing headlines is a great idea. I didn’t put time and thoughts into crafting the heading. Hence, almost nobody clicked on my words.

If you ever want to be a successful writer, you need to start working on your titles. Because if no one clicks on your heading, you’ll always have zero readers.

The good news is headline writing is a skill you can master.

Once you understand the components of successful headlines, you can create your own engaging titles.

But consistently writing headlines that make people click is more complex than you might think. It requires continuous practice and re-learning.

And yet, there are a couple of components that will help you craft titles that make people click. The following tips helped me reach 2 million readers in less than two years.

Considering just half of them, you’re already better off than 90% of all online writers.


Write clearly for the benefit of your readers

Online readers don’t have much time. They need prompt satisfaction and quick solutions.

That’s why great headlines focus on the reader’s benefit. They specifically answer the question: What’s in it for the reader?

If readers click, they’ll get something out of the article.

This seems trivial, but when you look around, you’ll see that most articles neglect the reader’s benefit. They read like journal entries and lengthy life stories where the reader’s benefit is hidden.

How you can apply this:

Every time you write a new story, ask yourself: what’s in it for the reader?

Provide your readers with a specific benefit that can bring transformation to their lives. To give you some concrete examples, the reader’s benefit is crystal clear in these headlines:

  • The Feynman Technique Can Help You Remember Everything You Read
  • How One Year of Microdosing Helped My Career, Relationships, and Happiness
  • The Shy Person’s Guide to Winning Friends and Influencing People

You can be explicit and use the word “you” to state that the article will be about the reader. As an alternative, you can guide the reader through an experience of your life that can help the reader as well.


Find an angle that attracts a broad audience

I love writing about education.

Yet I’m aware that if I write about Estonia’s education system, the article likely won’t go viral. There are simply not enough people who’re interested in the topic to such depth.

If you’d like to attract a broad audience, contemplate the breadth of your writing by considering what other people might find interesting about your chosen topic. While the title should be as specific as possible, it should also appeal to a large audience.

How you can apply this:

When crafting your headline, answer these questions: Why would many readers care? Who is this relevant for? Is my topic broad enough?

These articles appeal to a broad audience:

  • If You Want to Be Rich, Spend Your Time Buying Assets
  • 3 Binge-Worthy Books for Life-Long Learners
  • 9 Micro-Habits That Will Completely Change Your Life in a Year

While, in my case, Estonia’s education system can’t appeal to a broad audience, I can still write about education in a more inclusive way. People want to remember everything they read, and they’d also like to read books from which they can learn.


People only share specific kinds of articles

Would you share an article titled “How I Overcome My Emotional-Insecurity” on your LinkedIn or Facebook profile?

People only share stuff on the internet that makes them look smart or helpful.

If your article has the shareability quality, it’s more likely to go viral. Because if people share your work, more people will read it, and more people will share it.

How you can apply this:

Think about: Which angle is share-worthy for your readers in your article?

To make your readers look smart and/or helpful, craft headlines where you solve a specific problem for them. If the solution is useful, they’ll happily share it with their friends and colleagues.

You don’t need to solve the biggest life challenges of the readers. It’s enough if you can help them declutter their mailboxes.

These articles, for example, are broadly shared on the internet:

  • These 3 Practices by Bill Gates Will Change How You Read
  • The 7 Emails You Should Send Every Week to Get Ahead in Your Career
  • 11 Things Socially Aware People Don’t Say

Don’t copy the past. Share your spiky point of view instead

The reason why re-using old headlines most of the time can’t work is the lack of novelty.

What went viral last year won’t be popular this year. People want to read stories from angles they’ve never seen before.

To avoid repeating what has been said before, add your spiky point of view to the title.

As Wes Kao explains, a spiky point of view is someone’s unique, slightly controversial perspective that others can disagree with. It lays outside of the mainstream and brings fresh ideas to the conversation.

You can think about your spiky point of view as the unique way you see the world.

How you can apply this:

To discover your spiky point of view, ask yourself:

  • What is something I strongly believe but others might disagree with?
  • What do most people like but I can’t stand?
  • What is something that I stand by but isn’t (yet) accepted by the society?

You could also use structures such as:

  • Most people think X, but it’s actually Y
  • How I got Y (desirable result in your industry) without Z (conventional advice)

These headings did a great job at adding novelty to the conversation:

  • Self-improvement has made me worse
  • How I Quit Coffee After 15 Years Of Daily Consumption
  • My Life Became Richer the Day I Stopped Chasing Passive Income

Build on other people’s credibility

If readers recognise well-known names in a title, they’re more likely to click because those people already have expertise in their fields.

Readers didn’t know me when I had my first viral article, but they were for sure aware of Bill Gates. The advice came from him and not from me.

Yet, if you have a unique experience that can be useful for others, you can also add “self-proof” to your heading. Whether you built up a career, skipped coffee entirely, or just learned how to meditate and stuck to your practice for years, you can add self-proof to your work.

How you can apply this:

Rely on well-known names, or add self-proof if you’re an expert in the topic you write about.

To help your thinking, here are a few examples:

  • Tim Ferriss’s Recent Change of Heart Shows How Self-Improvement Can Fail You
  • Elon Musk’s 2 Rules For Learning Anything Faster
  • This is How I Made My First $30,000 From Writing Online
  • 12 Months Ago I Drank Ayahuasca — Here’s How My Life Has Changed Since

You’ll write great headlines if you do this one thing

People also click on a headline if it awakens emotions in them. Whether it’s curiosity, anger, or joy, if you can make others feel a certain way when they read your headings, you can also make them click.

This component is tricky, though. Be aware that half of your readers won’t like what you share if you’re controversial. Prepare that they won’t return and might leave angry comments under your work.

Feelings are powerful. Be aware of which emotions you want to transmit.

How you can apply this:

Use power and emotional words in your headings, such as:

Source: Coschedule

To give you some concrete examples, these articles awaken emotions:

  • An Elderly Mathematician Hacked the Lottery for $26 Million
  • Today I Learned Something About My Boyfriend That No Girl Should Ever Have to Discover
  • If Women Don’t Want To Be Treated as Sex Objects, Why Do They Dress Provocatively?

What to Keep in Mind

Writing great headlines is complex. Unfortunately, you likely won’t get it intuitively right; you need to learn about titles, and then you need to practice writing them.

And headline practice requires a lot of practice. That’s why we spend an entire 1.5-hour live session on headline practice in my online writing course.

To refresh your memory, these are the six components that make people click a headline:

  1. Reader first
  2. Breadth
  3. Shareability
  4. Novelty
  5. Social proof
  6. Provoke emotions

Don’t feel overwhelmed. Even though it’s challenging, headline writing is also a skill you can master.

For a start, focus on 1–2 components depending on what you write about. You got this.


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Filed Under: ✍🏽 Online Creators Tagged With: advice, Editing, Ideas, Writing

How to Master the Most Important Yet Underrated Writing Skill

July 21, 2022 by Eva Keiffenheim

Write headlines that make people click on your work

Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash

People don’t click on boring headlines.

You can have the best content ever; if your title isn’t convincing enough, it’ll never get the attention it might deserve. Too many great articles are lost because of a poor headline.

If you want yours to stand out, you must start practising headline writing.

I’ve recently written about what qualities great headlines have in common. But this article will be about how you can master the skill of headline writing. Because it’s not enough to understand what a great headline can look like. To improve, you need to learn how to craft them by yourself.

So here’s how.


The exact flow of your complete headline practice

At the beginning of my journey, my headlines sucked.

No wonder I didn’t have many readers.

But once I started to put more time into my headline practice, this is what happened:

Source: Screenshot from the Writing Online Accelerator Module 2

To get better in any skill, you need to practice it.

As Ayodeji Awosike put it:

I’ve written more than 15,000 headlines since I’ve started writing. Only one per cent of them are really good. Those one per cent of headlines I’ve written created 100 percent of my viral successes. Every single morning, I write down 10 ideas for headlines. […] I promise, if you don’t learn how to write good headlines, you’ll never have a career as a blogger. Never. So do I.


How and where to craft spiky headlines

There’s no secret sauce for headline writing: you need to put some work in.

From now on, try to craft ten headline variations for each article you write. This way, you train your mind to create headlines, and you’ll inevitably get better at it.

Implement 2–3 headline qualities into each of your titles.

In a nutshell, great headlines:

  • Focus on the readers and deliver some benefit — If You Want to Be Rich, Spend Your Time Buying Assets
  • Are broad enough to attract a large audience — 9 Micro-Habits That Will Completely Change Your Life in a Year
  • Enable the reader to share it with others because the article either makes them look smart or helpful — The 7 Emails You Should Send Every Week to Get Ahead in Your Career
  • Bring some novelty in your point of view — Self-improvement has made me worse
  • Display either famous people or self-proof — Elon Musk’s 2 Rules For Learning Anything Faster
  • Evoke emotions — Today I Learned Something About My Boyfriend That No Girl Should Ever Have to Discover

You can write your headlines on a sheet of paper, in Trello, in an excel sheet, or in any other place you feel comfortable. Opt for a tool you’ll want to rely on every single time you sit down to write.

I use RoamResearch for my headline practice. This is what it looks like.

Source: Screenshot from the Writing Online Accelerator Module 2

When you’re ready with your ten headline variations, choose the one you’d click on.

The thing is, the practice isn’t as easy as it sounds. You’ll get frustrated by not having enough headline variations. You might see that your titles suck. You might want to stop the practice. And your feelings are valid.

But practicing is the only way to improve. Writing ten headline variations for each article enables you to grow exponentially. While most people will write only ten headlines for ten articles, by that time, you’ll have written 100 titles.


Get more eyes on your work

If you’ve written many headlines and struggle to choose the best, you can ask for some help. Don’t hesitate to share your work with some friends, family members, and also fellow writers.

You can even organize a slack group for headline practice. In the Writing Online Accelerator, my students form groups even after the course and work together.

When I started to write, I did the work for myself. I wrote to fellow writers, and we started a Slack group for accountancy and writing practice. Every time I struggled with my headings, I asked my peers what they thought:

Source: Screenshot from the Writing Online Accelerator Module 2

The only tool you need to master headline writing

In the last step of your practice, you’d want to further improve the headline you’ve picked. You can do so by replacing words with synonyms or adding power words, such as genius, unexpected, mind-changing, and so on.

CoSchedule will help you with this. (No need to buy the full version).

The platform analyses your titles and gives you a score. Anything under the score of 70 needs more work. Above 70, you’re good to go.

All you need to do is copy-paste the headline of your choice to the “Write your headline here…” window. If you’re not yet content with the outcome, add the updated version of your heading to the same place and reanalyze it.

The free version of CoSchedule is more than enough. You don’t need to subscribe to the pro version.

To show you an example, the title below says, “This mind-changing concept shows it’s never too late to become your best self.” I’ve got a headline score of 74, which is good, but it can still be better.

An alternative, “This mind-changing discovery shows you’re never too old to become your best self,” already has a score of 75. With one more tweak, “This mind-changing discovery shows you’re never too old to become better,” the score is 76.

Yet, if you don’t like the version that has only a slightly higher score, you can still decide on a headline with a lower score, given that it’s above 70.

Source: Screenshot from the Writing Online Accelerator Module 2

Don’t stop here

Your writing starts with the headline. You convince people to click on your work with the headline. Then you hook them in with your introduction and main part.

But you encourage them to stay and come back for more with your Call-to-Action at the end of each article.

Yet most writers don’t have a CTA and don’t start building an email list from day 1. They lose hundreds of readers who’d be genuinely interested in their work.

In this free 5-week course, I exactly show you how you can set up your writing for audience growth.


Remember the essence

Writing great headlines takes time and practice.

To create outstanding titles, you’ll need to spend more quality time with your potential headlines.

You can apply this by getting a sheet and adding ten headline variations for each of your articles. The practice is hard. Whatever you feel, your emotions are valid.

If you want to take your practice one step further, ask for the opinion of others. You can do so in a slack group or via 1-on-1 messaging.

Improve and finalise the best title version with CoSchedule.

Without great headlines, you’ll have a hard time attracting readers.

But if you put in the work and practice, you’ll be ahead of 90% of the bloggers.


Ready to accelerate your writing journey and build an online audience?

Subscribe for a free 5-day course on how you can set up the single most important thing writers usually forget to attract a large audience online. With a total time investment of only 20 minutes.

Filed Under: ✍🏽 Online Creators Tagged With: advice, Editing, Writing

How to Easily Find Your Writing Niche for Growing an Audience

July 21, 2022 by Eva Keiffenheim

You can find it at this intersection.

Source: Canva

“How can I decide on my writing niche?” is a question a lot of people ask when they decide to start writing.

The thing is, you don’t decide on your niche.

You discover it through writing.

The beauty of starting a writing career is that you can start anywhere.

When I started, I wrote about relationships, SEO, and intuitive eating. At the beginning of my journey, I believed I’ll be writing articles about romantic relationships.

It wasn’t until 50 articles in that I discovered my niche. And once I stuck to my niche of learning and education, my audience grew exponentially.

So how do you find your writing niche for audience growth?

In essence, you need to find the intersection of what you’re curious about and what people want to read from you. The following lines reveal how you find answers to both.

Source: Screenshot from my course Writing Online Accelerator, Module 1

1) How to Discover What You Like Writing About

First, you want to experiment with as many topics as possible and monitor yourself.

When I started writing, I wrote about everything I felt curious about. Some articles felt challenging, while others seemed to flow naturally.

While I enjoy talking about relationship forms (I run a weekly German podcast with my partner), it turns out I hate writing about them. But if I hadn’t tested all the ideas, I wouldn’t have known now what I enjoy writing about.

How you can apply this:

Make an idea list with your answers to the following questions: What do you like to talk about? Where do you have work expertise? What topics evoke strong emotions inside of you? What are you curious about?

These questions can help you in the very beginning. Don’t forget you’ll only know what you enjoy writing about if you do the writing. Commit to testing and trying as many different fields as possible to gain clarity about your true writing interest.


2) How to Discover What People Like Reading from You

After you’ve written at least 20 articles on different topics, you can take a look at your statistics.

But not before.

In the beginning, focus on only two things — the number of your published articles and the hours you spent per article.

“Data doesn’t lie. But data is also a reflection of the external crowd, and not necessarily your internal compass.”

— Nicolas Cole

If you don’t already have many articles published, Medium stats (and for the record, any stats) won’t tell you a lot. You can’t derive meaningful data from five articles or a few hundred reads.

While some metrics are worth thinking about, others are negligible. The number of claps won’t tell you a lot. You also shouldn’t bother about the number of views or the number of your followers.

The metric “views” is a great indicator of the quality of your headlines. “Reads” show you how many people actually read your article after they’ve clicked on it. “Reading time” shows how much time people, on average spent reading our piece.

Source: Screenshot from my course Writing Online Accelerator, Module 6

How you can apply this:

Once you’ve published about 50–100 articles, look at the data. Your goal is to find patterns. Which headlines worked particularly well?

Filter your stories by views and reads. Are there any recurring topics in your most-read stories?

You don’t need to worry if your writing doesn’t appeal to a broad audience. You can write for a small niche until you pay attention to their needs and learn what they want to read from you.


What to Keep in Mind

Don’t worry if your niche isn’t straightforward for you. Most writers had no clue about their niches when they started, including me.

And that’s alright.

The beginning of the writing journey is a lot of experimenting. Don’t worry about your niche in the first year of your writing.

Try out the things that feel good to you. Experiment first, and analyze what people like reading from you only in a second step.

Above all, enjoy the writing process and reflect on how you feel while discovering different topics.


Ready to accelerate your writing journey and build an online audience?

Subscribe for a free 5-day course on how you can set up the single most important thing writers usually forget to attract a large audience online, with a total time investment of only 20 minutes.

Filed Under: ✍🏽 Online Creators Tagged With: advice, Writing

I Used to Run out of Writing Ideas. This Repeatable 3-Step Process Helped.

July 5, 2022 by Eva Keiffenheim

A straightforward approach to ideation so you never start with a blank page.

Eva Keiffenheim (Credits: Florentina Olareanu/Golden Hour Pictures)

Every great article starts with an idea. But while ideas are your entry ticket to writing, they can also be a barrier.

Lucky people feel overwhelmed by their abundance of ideas. Others find themselves uninspired, staring at the blank screen.

I was among the latter.

When I started writing online I was sure I’d soon run out of ideas. I feared I’d quickly use up the good ones. I felt uncreative and as if I had not much worth sharing.

It took me months to understand how wrong I was.

Creativity is practice. With the right process in place, you’ll never have to run out of ideas.

The following three-step process is my writing fuel. It has helped me publish more than 300 articles, and reach over two million readers. This structure can help you never again struggle with ideas.


1) What goes in will come out

Most writing consists of living your life and consuming content. Only some part of the process is actually sitting down, writing, and editing your work.

And most importantly, the former determines the latter. How you live your life informs your writing.

Most people mindlessly consume content. They scroll through the jungle of ever-growing content. Occasionally they’ll stumble upon interesting ideas, but mostly they consume trash.

On the internet, consuming trash content is the default option. Unless you work against it, you’ll find yourself in the doom of social media and daily news cycles.

A couple of years ago, I spent two hours a day scrolling through Facebook, reading through newspapers, or listening to news podcasts. It wasn’t until a smart friend told me to replace news consumption with reading books, that things changed.

Digging deeper than the often superficial social media posts will increase your understanding of the world. And it will also help you become a better writer.

By avoiding mediocre content and consuming the greatest inspirational resources, you’ll find yourself writing better articles. Because what goes in will come out.

How to apply this:

Which content are you regularly consuming that’s not adding value to your life? Replace it with better stuff.

Go beyond the content everyone else is reading. There are Goodreads, Gatesnotes, and so many other best-selling lists that suggest what you should be reading. Most of these lists contain books from authors with the best marketing strategy or the broadest social media reach.

If you look at human history, the chances are small that the greatest books were created in the past decade. The fundamental human problems seem to be the same in all ages: Justice, love, virtue, stability, and change itself.

Search, for example, through the appendix of Mortimer J. Adler’s classic How to Read a book. Alternatively, ask the smartest and most inspiring people you know which type of newsletters, books, or online articles they read and listen to.

I asked my students at the Writing Online Accelerator to add their most-inspiring resources to an inspiration board. (Click here to get the full board free).

Source: Screenshot from the Writing Online Accelerator Module 1

2) How to program your mind to come up with ideas

There’s a crucial thing to keep in mind when it comes to ideas: Don’t scare them away.

Be gentle on how you treat your ideas and monitor your thoughts.

If you label your ideas as ‘bad’ without noting them down, you hinder your ideation process. You don’t give your mind the safe space for the ‘good’ ideas to arise.

There’s no such thing as a ‘bad idea’. Here’s how to transform your thinking.

My idea is worthless =► Every idea is valuable.

Don’t judge your ideas while writing them down. Ideas are like raw diamonds, and you don’t know how they’ll turn out until you’ve written the article.

This has been written before. =► This has not been done by me.

Yes, your idea exists in some form on the internet. Unless you’re doing ground-breaking scientific research, many people have written about your idea. But don’t let that hold you back. You’re the best at living your life. You can add your unique perspective to the conversation.

I don’t have enough ideas. =► I have plenty of ideas.

In the beginning, you won’t have an abundance of ideas. But if you let yourself be inspired and treat your ideas well, they’ll arise. The more you create, the more creative you become. The best ideas and connections will arise once you flow into the writing process.

How to apply this:

Say yes to any idea that strikes your mind. Stop worrying whether other people have written about a topic.

You’ve not written about it yet, and that’s the only thing that matters. Don’t be scared to write about the same idea twice or thrice.

You’ll become more specific every time you write about it. Lastly, trust the process. You’ll have more ideas with every article you write.

“Most things have been done, but they have not yet been done by you.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

3) Have one tool to capture your ideas

Once you’re aware of the ideation process, it’s time to capture and store your ideas.

There’s an insane amount of tools you can choose from. At the beginning of my journey, I used Trello. Then I switched to Notion and I experimented with an excel sheet. For a while, I settled for Milanote. Milanote was visually appealing to me, I could use it via my phone as well, and it is searchable.

In April 2022 I discovered xTiles. The platform combines all features I was looking for. It’s a mixture of note-taking and a whiteboard — as if Milanote and Notion had a baby.

My current idea board xTiles (Screenshot by author).

How to apply this:

Experiment, and choose a tool that feels good to you, and where you really going to capture all the ideas. It can be a google sheet, a journal, xTiles, Notion, or any other tool you like.

When choosing your tool, think about: Do you know how to use it? Do you like how it looks and feels? Will you use it every day?”

When you write down your ideas you communicate to your brain that it’s worthy to generate more ideas. If you have ideas and don’t follow them, you teach your brain you’re not doing anything with them. You’ll doubt your ideas more and more. So say yes to all ideas that come to my mind and capture them in a single place


Remember the essence

To never run out of ideas, you’ll need to:

  • Consume inspirational content
  • Treat your ideas well: there aren’t any bad ideas
  • Capture your thoughts: every time an idea comes to your mind, save it on your idea board

Ideas are the magical place where your writing starts. Steal my three-step process to always start in idea abundance.


Ready to accelerate your writing journey and build an online audience?

Subscribe for a free 5-day course on how you can set up the single most important thing writers usually forget to attract a large audience online. With a total time investment of only 20 minutes.

Filed Under: ✍🏽 Online Creators Tagged With: advice, Ideas, inspiration, Writing

The Simple Hack for Audience Growth Many New Writers Miss out On

June 24, 2022 by Eva Keiffenheim

How to set up your writing routine for attracting a large audience

Eva Keiffenheim — Credits: Emanuel Schi x Entrepreneurship Avenue

“What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?” is a question I get asked a lot.

And while many things come to my mind — how to write headlines, engaging introductions, or a clear idea-to-paper process — there’s one particular knowledge nugget that has changed my writing journey ever since.

I remember the advice as if it was yesterday because it seemed so hilarious and terribly wrong.

And that’s exactly why the tip was gold and the best writing advice I ever received. It’s the things you don’t know you don’t know that can make all the difference.

So let me share with you what my writing mentor shared with me early in my writing journey:

Start building your email list today.

Even if you just published your first article. Even if only five people subscribed to your Medium account. Trust me. Today is the right time to start your email list. One day your collection of your follower’s emails will become your biggest asset.

Because platforms, such as Medium or LinkedIn, change. Emails don’t. Your follower’s email address is their most permanent online identity. Once they sign up for your email list, you have the permission to reach out to them directly. You’re no longer dependent on algorithms.

Even if you have just published a few articles, asking your readers to sign up for your e-mail list is a must-do. Here’s how you can do it fast.


The exact steps you can take to set up your e-mail list in 20 minutes

Done is better than perfect. You don’t need to first compare all available mailing tools out there. You don’t even need to know what you’ll be sharing with your email subscribers.

You can export your list and set a topic later on. All you want to do early in your writing career is set up a minimum viable version.

Here’s a three-step process you can follow to have a first version ready in about twenty minutes of your time.

1) Pick an email provider and sign-up for it (5 minutes)

The list of mailing providers is vast and I wasted a lot of time comparing and trying different tools. But again, you’re not looking for the perfect solution but for the option that’s good enough.

I tried Mailchimp and Substack but ultimately chose Convertkit because it offers email design templates, a strong community, a lot of tutorials, and plenty of functions. Plus, it’s free for your first 2,000 subscribers. You can create your Convertkit account here.

Source: Screenshot from the Writing Online Accelerator Module 3

2) Choose a pre-built landing page on Convertkit (10 minutes)

It can be tempting to obsess over the design and “your brand.” But every minute you spend on design, you don’t spend writing. And you need to write to become a better writer.

So be pragmatic about the design and content. Keep in mind you can change that later when you’ve found your niche.

For now, the most important part is to have a landing page for collecting email addresses.

You don’t even need to state the frequency of your newsletter just yet. And you also don’t need to worry if you’re unsure about your newsletter’s content.

I didn’t send a single email until six months in. But when I knew what I wanted to write about, I sent out my first email to 400 subscribers.

So here’s how you create your landing page in 10 minutes, step-by-step.

Step 1: Choose a template from 50 pre-designed landing pages. The key purpose is to collect your readers’ email addresses. (3 min)

Step 2: Add your content. No worries if it’s only a “Wanna keep in touch? Subscribe for free!” one-liner. (2 min)

Step 3: If possible, add a picture of yourself to make your site more personal. (3 min)

Step 4 (Optional): Adjust the design: if you prefer another font, bolded or italics style, or another color, you can adjust that with Convertkit. (1 min)

Step 5: Link the landing page to the CTA that you put under each of your articles. (2 min)

The most important thing to keep in mind for setting up your landing page: Don’t get lost in the details. Set a timer for 10 minutes, and build your minimum viable version.

Here’s an example one of my students set up in the Writing Online Accelerator, Module 4.

The landing page of Maria Leis

Add a Call-to-Action underneath every article (5 minutes)

Even though you won’t see the benefits until your first written piece goes viral or semi-viral, this step is critically important.

If your article goes viral without a CTA that leads to your landing page for collecting emails, you’ll miss out on the most important opportunity to grow your subscriber base.

If I didn’t have a CTA when my first article went viral, I would have missed out on hundreds of people who were genuinely interested in my work.

Again, your CTA doesn’t need to be perfect yet.

Until 2021, my CTA was a generic “Want to connect? Subscribe to my email list.” If people like what they read, they’ll still subscribe.

Here are some stepping stones you can use to formulate your CTA:

  • “Want to improve X? My newsletter will help you create the Y you need to move towards a Z future.”
  • “Get access to exclusive X content. Subscribe to my free newsletter here.”
  • Want to stay in touch? Subscribe to my email list.

But a simple “Let’s connect!” or “Say hello here!” would also do the trick.

Don’t be afraid to start with a generic CTA. You can adjust your CTA after figuring out what you want to do with your list.


What to Keep in Mind

Platforms change. Emails don’t.

Many writers miss out on this vital growth tool. They don’t set it up early, and when they finally experience the long-desired growth, they miss out on hundreds of subscribers.

Don’t be among the people who miss out but build your email list from day one.

Follow these steps to set it up fast:

  1. Register on Convertkit
  2. Choose a landing page
  3. Add a Call-to-Action underneath each of your articles

Don’t wait until tomorrow. Even if it feels counterintuitive, set up your email list today.


Ready to accelerate your writing journey and build an online audience?

Subscribe for a free 5-day course on how you can set up the single most important thing writers usually forget to attract a large audience online. With a total time investment of only 20 minutes.

Filed Under: ✍🏽 Online Creators Tagged With: advice, Writing

How to Never Run Out of Writing Ideas

May 25, 2022 by Eva Keiffenheim

Creativity is a choice once you manage your ideas.

Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

When I started writing, I felt I had nothing worthy to say and that I’d soon run out of ideas. Two years and 300 articles later, I know I was wrong about both.

Everybody has something worthy to share.

And creativity is a choice.

The following lines reveal how you can have endless ideas and what to do with them.


“Most things have been done, but they have not yet been done by you.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

How to Train Your Brain to Have Endless Ideas

After I had published my first three articles, I had no ideas left. I faced most writers’ biggest fear — a blank page.

Luckily, I soon learned how to always have ideas at your fingertips. These are the two creativity principles I’ve used ever since.

Don’t kill your baby ideas…

In the beginning, almost all ideas are shit. They lack substance, examples, research, or anecdotes.

That’s why new writers judge and discard their ideas very early. In fact, too early. Ideas need time to mature.

If you kill your ideas when they’re still at the baby stage, you’ll never know how they might have turned out.

And, even worse: you tell your brain your ideas are worthless. It will soon stop generating new ones.

What you want to do is to be neutral towards any idea that crosses your mind. Acknowledge it’s too early to know whether the idea is good and continue with step two.

…but capture them.

Every idea is worth capturing. Because you’re now telling your brain, it’s worth generating new ones. Your brain will become your best idea supplier.

The challenge?

Ideas come when you don’t expect them.

Most of my ideas come while I write another article, meditate, go for a run, or have a conversation with friends. That’s why you want to have a clear workflow for idea capturing.


How to Pick Your Idea Management Tool

When you look for a tool to capture your ideas, you want it to fulfil three key criteria: Do you know how to use it? Do you like how it looks and feels? Will you use it every day?

Source: Writing Online Accelerator

In the beginning, I spent hours looking for the best tool. But comparing tools can distract you from actually doing the work.

Let me save you some time by demonstrating what worked and what didn’t work for me. My idea boards evolved from an unhandy Trello to a still unhandy Notion, to a more flexible Milanote, to xTiles.

My idea board on Trello: March 2020 — July 2020. With every new idea, it felt more chaotic. (Screenshot by author).
My idea board on Notion: August 2020 — December 2020. I had the same “growth” problem as with Trello: endless vertical scrolling. (Screenshot by author).
My idea board on Milanote: Jan 2021 — March 2022. I loved the flexible organization. But the search function was painful, and I missed Notion’s formatting tools (Screenshot by author).
My current idea board xTiles (Screenshot by author).

xTiles combines all features I was looking for. It’s a mixture of note-taking and a whiteboard — as if Milanote and Notion had a baby.

It’s not as rigid as Notion and Trello, I can visually organize information. And yet, it has a level of organization I missed in Milanote. Here are two examples:

You can add new cards anywhere and move the content around. (Screen recording by author).
You can expand and close cards as you need them so things don’t get messy. (Screen recording by author).

What to Keep in Mind

Your life is full of inspiration once you start looking for it. You can find ideas in conversations, books, movies, podcasts, and even in architecture or relationships.

But ideas arise when you don’t expect them. So the most important part is to have a tool to store them.

Once something strikes your mind, add the idea to your idea board. Add any helpful context, such as videos or next steps, to explore the concept even further:

Add to-dos and video links

Once you capture every idea, you’ll swim in a sea of idea abundance. And the more you create, the more creative you become.

Filed Under: ✍🏽 Online Creators Tagged With: Ideas, inspiration, Writing

The Key Idea All Great Books on Learning Have in Common

February 2, 2022 by Eva Keiffenheim


And how you can implement the powerful way to learn.

Source: Created by author

No life skill can earn you greater dividends than learning how to learn.

After reading more than 30 books on learning, I noticed a recurring principle.

It’s a clear practice that integrates almost all of the most effective learning strategies:

  • Retrieval practice: recall something from your memory
  • Spaced repetition: repeat the same information across increasing intervals
  • Interleaving: alternate before each practice is complete
  • Elaboration: rephrase new knowledge and connect it with existing insights
  • Reflection: synthesize key lessons taught by experience
  • Self-testing: answer a question or a problem and identify knowledge gaps

The following lines will not only reveal the key idea and how it works but also show you an efficient way to integrate it into your daily life.


The Principle All Great Books on Learning Agree On

I spent countless hours trying to find a process that integrates all of the above aspects into a learning habit. For example, one result was an efficient (yet time-consuming) way to remember everything you want from non-fiction books.

Luckily, there’s a more efficient way: teaching in public.

Here’s why and how it works.

When you teach, you first have to retrieve what you know from your memory.

And the good thing: you don’t need to feel fully knowledgeable about the content before you instruct others. You’ll understand the material by teaching.

Dr Barbara Oakley writes in her book:

“You may think you really have to understand something in order to explain it. But observe what happens when you are talking to other people about what you are studying.

You’ll be surprised to see how often understanding arises as a consequence of attempts to explain to others and yourself, rather than the explanation arising out of your previous understanding.

This is why teachers often say that the first time they ever really understood the material was when they had to teach it.”

Moreover, by teaching, you make new material stick to your memory.

Learning through teaching is efficient because you have to rephrase new knowledge in your own terms and connect it with existing insights — the essence of elaboration, as the authors of ‘Make it Stick’ define it:

“Elaboration is the process of giving new material meaning by expressing it in your own words and connecting it with what you already know.”

Moreover, knowing you’re learning something to explain it to somebody else transforms how you process the material in the first place and includes a second repetition loop.

Jim Kwik, a renowned expert in memory improvement, explains in ‘Limitless’:

“Everything we learn should be learned with the intent to teach someone else. When we know we have to present information to someone else, we pay attention differently than when we learn just for ourselves.

So if we can take that mentality and apply it to everything we want to learn, we can increase our retention and understanding. The thing about learning to teach is we actually get to learn twice. The first time when we learn it ourselves, and the second when we teach it to someone else.

The information gets cemented through their questions and observations, making learning an interactive process instead of a passive activity.”

Effortful learning is far more effective than passive content consumption. And teaching is one of the most active things you can do.

The more work your brain does, the more connections you establish. And as you know, more connections increase the chances of remembering what you learn.

By teaching, you have to recall things from your memory actively. The authors of ‘The New Science of Learning’ state::

“To make good use of your study time, don’t just look over the material or read over the material passively, but actually try to recall the material.

Each time a memory is recalled, both it and its cue are strengthened, and you can access the desired information in your brain faster. Simply reading the material over is much less effective in building a strong memory process.”

Lastly, teaching helps you identify knowledge gaps and review the material strategically.

Award-winning science writer Benedict Carey explains why teaching something to others is so effective:

“These apparently simple attempts to communicate what you’ve learned, to yourself or others, are not merely a form of self-testing, in the conventional sense, but studying — the high-octane kind, 20 to 30 percent more powerful than if you continued sitting on your butt, staring at that outline.

Better yet, those exercises will dispel the fluency illusion. They’ll expose what you don’t know, where you’re confused, and what you’ve forgotten — and fast.”

Now that you know why teaching is so powerful (it naturally includes retrieval, spaced repetition, elaboration, self-testing, and reflection), let’s see how you can put this into practice.

Created by Eva Keiffenheim

The Best Way to Teach and Maximize Your Learning

You can do many things, but many of them are inconvenient. Likely, you don’t have the time or resources to give lectures, host a podcast, or have patient friends who listen to you trying to explain newly learned concepts.

I tested various ways to teach in public before finding the most effective way. For example, I created YouTube videos about cryptocurrencies or recorded Podcast episodes about communication and polyamory.

While I enjoyed the process, it was time-consuming and filled with secondary tasks (video and audio cutting).

Writing in public is the best way to teach what you learned to the entire world. It comes with less friction (you can write anywhere) and minimum time commitment (no video or audio skills required).

Since I’ve started writing in March of 2020, I learned more than in the combined five years of university education.

When you write, you put pressure on your thinking. It forces you to make your thoughts crystal clear. In this process, you learn and understand.

Writing helps you see how seemingly unrelated thoughts connect. That’s why writing is a mind-expanding, often even enlightening experience.

Through writing, you realize whether you truly got the concept or swim in the illusion of knowledge.

“The one who does the work does the learning,” learning scientist Doyle states. And when you write about your newly learned knowledge, you do the work.


“I’ve learned more in the course of writing and researching the thousands of articles to date than in all the years of my formal education combined.”

— Maria Popova, author of The Marginalian


How You Can Create a Consistent Writing Habit

A replicable writing habit is not as simple as having an idea, writing it down, publishing.

New writers often fail to acknowledge the micro-steps that are neccessary to move from idea generation to a well-articulated article.

Here’s what you want to focus on to stay consistent and create your personal learning engine.

1. Start with the right mindset

Write and publish 30 articles before expecting any joy or return on your time investment.

When you start out, writing can feel challenging. Words don’t come easily, and writing might feel slow and painful.

Likely, with every step of your writer’s journey, things become more complicated — you’ll become aware of everything you don’t know yet. But be sure that this is a sign of progress, not of desperation.

Just like any habit, it’s easy to stop after your initial enthusiasm. Answering the following questions early on have kept me going.

  • How does writing online fit into your story?
  • Why is writing online the right thing for you to do right now?
  • What might get in your way and prevent you from completing this course and publishing consistently?
  • How do you prevent this from happening? Can you use the energy from this fear to help you?

2. Set a clear goal and schedule

Again, the first few months of writing are tough. You will struggle to put words on paper, and nobody will be interested in your work because it’s not good enough (yet).

You don’t have external recognition; you don’t have the skills to write fast and good; you don’t have a backlog of content you can recycle; you don’t have a large following waiting for you to publish, which will increase your commitment.

Remember that building a writing habit is not linear but exponential. You will have to practice a lot before your words resonate with readers. In the early days, you will write in the void.

Source: Created by Eva Keiffenheim

What you want is to set up a routine and structure that carries you towards writing your first 100 articles. A couple of questions that can help you:

  • How many articles do you want to publish until the end of this month and year?
  • When and how often will you write? (days, time, duration)
  • What do you need to stop doing so you find the time to write?
  • How will you protect your writing time?

3. Get help and join a tribe of fellow writers

Steven King shared a piece of wisdom in his book on writing: “You don’t need writing classes or seminars any more than you need this or any other book on writing. You learn best by reading a lot and writing a lot, and the most valuable lessons of all are the ones you teach yourself.”

I agree. And yet, while you have to do the work yourself, the right tools and tactics can fuel your growth.

That’s why I started the writing online accelerator — a three-week cohort-based course that will help you transform from a dreamer into a doer. You will learn how to create your learning engine and attract a broad audience. You can pre-register for free here.

Writing is one of the rare professions that give you a ticket to lifelong learning by turning you into a teacher. Make sure to make the most of it.


Want to feel inspired and improve your learning?

Subscribe free to The Learn Letter. I read a book and 50 articles a week, and each Wednesday, you’ll receive the best in your inbox. This newsletter will make you find tools and resources that help you on your path to health, wealth, and wisdom.

Filed Under: 🧠 Learning Hacks Tagged With: How to learn, learning, Writing

You Want to Write Online in 2022? Publish Your Articles Here

November 20, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim


Where you start makes all the difference.

Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash

Where will you publish your writing?

You face ever-growing options —Medium, Substack, your own website, and LinkedIn, and other publications.

This guide will help you make the right choice on where to start publishing your writing. The choice depends on your context. Some platforms might be more suitable for you than the other ones.

After reading this article, you’ll know the key factors for decision-making, and you’ll feel confident about your choice.


The key question to ask yourself

The most important thing you should look out for is to get sufficient data on your writing because this is what will help you improve.

You want to know which of your posts perform best and how much time people spend on your articles. Comments underneath your posts to learn about your readers’ needs and interests.

Through data, you can analyze your writing and create more from what works well. You can push the topics your readers are genuinely interested in and steadily attract more people.

But to get this kind of data, you need an initial audience of people reading your posts. That’s why the core question you should be asking yourself is: Do I have an existing +10K follower base on any social media platform or +2K newsletter subscribers?

In essence, you can break down all the existing options into this formula: They either distribute your content to their existing audience, or you have to bring in your own people.

You can write the best content in the world, but if nobody discovers your work, it will be worthless. So unless you have an existing audience, the key metric for your decision-making should be whether the platform you choose can help you grow your audience.


Writing on your personal blog

James Clear, Farnam Street, and many other successful writers post their writing on their blogs.

The key advantage of your own blog is that you own your audience. You can do with your blog traffic whatever you like: share affiliate links, advertise brands or sell your own products.

Another argument for blogs is your independence from algorithms. You’re not dependent on platforms to show your work to the readers. And you can design the website in your personal style.

You don’t need to be a programmer to publish your articles online. Content management systems like WordPress, Ghost, or Wix make website building easy.

Yet, unless you have an existing follower base, you’ll need to have a plan to drive people towards your blog. Are you good at SEO or plan to learn it? Can you spare +$2000 dollars and hire freelancers for sustainable traffic strategies? And is your writing good enough so that people will actually read your post once they find them?

When you’re starting out, you don’t know which articles people want to read from you. You might begin with a food blog and realize only later on that you’re not really into the topic. If you write on a blog and change your mind regarding your niche, you might have to start everything again from scratch.

That’s why — unless you have solid data on your niche and some 100 articles in your backlog — I advise against starting on a blog/website.


Writing on Substack

Newsletters are tempting. Platforms such as Substack, a platform for newsletters where subscribers have to pay for the creator if they wish to receive the recurring content, are on the rise.

Substack has grown from 0 to 1,000,000 paying subscribers within its first 4 years on the market. According to Hamish McKenzie, the co-founder of Substack, the top 10 publications of the platform together bring in more than $20 million per year.

“When you look at the economics of newsletters… If you can find 10,000 people to pay you $100 a year, you’re making $1 million a year. No one in media is going to pay you that.”

— Casey Newton, Platformer

Other success stories include Scott Hines, who grew his email list to 1,000 in less than a year. He writes personal essays about life, parenting, sports, and architecture. Scott says he started from scratch.

Yet, substack doesn’t help you gain an audience. You’ll have to bring in people on your own.

One of the most common Substack advice is to reach out to your family members, friends, colleagues and ask them to subscribe (out of solidarity).

Many of the people who experienced rapid growth on Substack, had an existing audience when they started their newsletter. So unless you can bring an audience from another platform, I’d advise against starting on Substack.


Writing on Linkedin

LinkedIn has 774,61 million active users and the platform is expected to reach 1,034.56 million by 2025. LinkedIn is the go-to platform for networking in the business world, and it can offer a large audience.

There’re two ways to write on LinkedIn in 2021. You can either publish articles or posts. Articles are in-depth pieces, while posts are quick ideas.

LinkedIn articles can be an option for you if you have an existing audience within your niche and you know which content works well for them. With that, you can get initial traction of people commenting and being interested in your content.

Yet, long-form articles mostly don’t perform well on LinkedIn even for people with a large follower base. You also won’t get paid anything on LinkedIn for writing, regardless of how many people have read your work.

Short-form posts can help you gain followers if you go viral or semi-viral. Yet, short writing mostly lacks in-depth information and expertise. To build authentic relationships and a loyal follower base, you’ll have to provide more valuable content to your audience than ‘few hundred words long’ social media posts. As on most social media platforms, creators fight for the attention of the users on LinkedIn as well.

Source: Wes Kao

If you want to build a loyal audience that values depth and clarity, I don’t recommend starting writing on LinkedIn. While the platform can be a growth tool to drive traffic towards your content, it’s not the best place to practice your craft.


Writing on Medium

Founded in 2012 by Ev Williams, the co-founder of Twitter, Medium users have grown steadily. The platform has gone through several changes through the years, including the introduction of the Partner Program, which allows writers to earn money based on members’ reading time.

In 2021, Medium proportionally reduced its paid journalists and started to support independent writers.

On Medium, publishing is frictionless. You tap into an existing audience of people interested in long-form content— unlike LinkedIn, where people mainly go to network and scroll. Through publications, comments, and curation, you receive feedback on your writing. Data on reading time, views, and the reading ratio will help you improve.

Plus, you don’t have to spend time building your website, doing SEO, and finding sponsorships or affiliates for your website. You get paid based on the user’s reading time on your articles.

Many creators complain their earnings aren’t in alignment with their time and energy investment. Indeed, only the top 10% of the writers regularly earn more than $100.

My income on Medium varies from $1,500 to $5,000 — but even if Medium wouldn’t pay me a single cent, I’d write on the platform. I get thoughtful comments and 10 to 25 e-mail subscribers a day.

I see the platform as a tool for testing and improving my writing and building an audience. The income is a nice side effect. If you’re starting out, the platform can offer you many growth and learning opportunities.


Conclusion

To make the best decision on where to publish online, you’ll have to consider the size of your audience.

While it makes sense to redistribute your 10k+ social media following to a paid newsletter subscription or to a blog filled with ads and affiliates, if you’re starting from scratch, it’s easier to tap into the audience of already flourishing platforms.


Do you want to build a consistent writing habit?

Pre-register for the next cohort of my writing online accelerator. You will transform into a consistent writer to attract an audience, create career opportunities, and become a better person. Find more details about the next launch date here.

Filed Under: ✍🏽 Online Creators Tagged With: inspiration, Writing

How the Meta Log Can Turn You Into a Better Writer

October 18, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim


Steal my tool to build a consistent, deliberate writing habit.

All you need are four columns. Source: Canva.

When I started writing, it felt painful. I didn’t know how to write introductions and struggled to express my ideas. I thought my texts sounded trite (which they did), and I knew I was not as effective as I could be.

I almost stopped writing altogether.

Fast forward, and I’ve built a consistent writing habit and reached more than two million readers through my articles and newsletters.

If I had to name one tool that has kept me going and improved my writing it’s the meta log. It will support you in establishing a deliberate, consistent writing practice that will turn you into a better writer.


The Science Behind the Meta Log

I invented the tool out of necessity and only recently understood why it works. The meta log is rooted in metacognition. It’s a skill essential for learning, according to many educational scientists.

Different studies show high performers have better metacognitive skills than low performers across various disciplines. Educational psychologist Schraw writes:

“Metacognition is essential to successful learning because it enables individuals to manage their cognitive skills better and to determine weaknesses that can be corrected by constructing new cognitive skills.”

But what is metacognition?

In essence, it means noticing and understanding the way you think. It’s thinking about thinking, knowing about knowing, or becoming aware of your awareness.

When it comes to learning, educational scientists say: “It refers to the processes used to plan, monitor, and assess one’s understanding and performance.”

Here’s a visual explanation:

Metacognition Cycle. (Source: Abhilasha Pandey on the progressive teacher).

“The best performers observe themselves closely. They are in effect able to step outside themselves, monitor what is happening in their own minds, and ask how it’s going.”

— Geoff Clovin


How to Quickly Set Up Your Meta Log

According to research, three steps are necessary for unlocking your metacognition: planning, monitoring, and evaluating.

Before you start writing, plan. You first think about your desired goal and consider how you’ll use your time.

Second, you can use self-monitoring to remain aware of your progress. You question the steps you take and reevaluate whether you’re following your planned path.

Finally, you want to reflect on your performance. You evaluate what went well and what you can do better next time you sit down to write.

To integrate this into your writing habit, all you need is a journal or spreadsheet with four columns.

  1. The first column is for the date.
  2. The second column is for the duration of writing.
  3. The third column is for planning and self-monitoring.
  4. The fourth column is for evaluation.
Source: Created by the author.

When you fill out the columns before and after your writing practice, you use your experience to regulate and improve future learning behavior. You self-monitor and self-regulate. Thereby, you steepen the learning curve towards your desired goals.


The 3 Principles to Make the Most of It

This meta log is a variation of learning journals, which have been proven to enhance meta-cognition.

“However, how the learning journal is used seems to be critical and good instructions are crucial; subjects who simply summarise their learning activity benefit less from the intervention than subjects who reflect about their knowledge, learning, and learning goals,” this meta-analysis in Nature concludes.

To make this practice effective, keep these three principles in mind.

1) Fill the blanks without a reader in mind.

Contrary to your articles, you don’t write for any reader. The meta log is for you. Don’t obsess over word choice. Nobody will ever read it, and it’s only there for you. The more honest you are with yourself, the more helpful it’ll be.

2) Use it every time you write.

Unused tools are useless. The meta-analysis in Nature says the longer you stick with a learning journal, the more effective it is. Strong effects have been observed among students in the context of writing.

Make it a habit to finish your writing with an entry in your meta log. Specify the next step for tomorrow.

3) Bold your key insights.

At the end of a month, go through your meta log and bold your key learnings. That way, you’ll have an easy time revisiting the critical lessons from the past and bring them back to your mind.

Here’s how my meta log from April 2020. I still keep coming back to the highlights once in a while.

Source: Created by the author.

In Conclusion

If you want to become a great writer, consistency matters most.

The meta log keeps you motivated, shows your progress, and helps you move in the right direction. This tool will help you be more effective by including metacognition in your writing process.

Are you ready to set it up?


I’m building a course on how to write online based on evidence-based practices to make the most of your time. You won’t sit in front of pre-recorded videos and struggle to stick with them. If you’re interested in joining a group of 25 people, you can pre-register here.

Filed Under: ✍🏽 Online Creators Tagged With: Editing, Writing

This is How I Made My First $30,000 From Writing Online

May 15, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim



7 beginner-friendly tips to get you started.

Photo by Julia M Cameron from Pexels

I published my first article in late March 2020. Since then, I made a full-time income from Medium and writing for clients that found me via the platform.

I had no prior writing experience, and English is not my first language.

Yet, I won’t say anyone can succeed. Writing is like running. You get better with practice, and almost anyone can do it. But how many of the people who fancy running end up running a marathon?

99% who read this will never start or quit too early. But if you’re in for the long-term, the following strategies and tips will help you make a solid income.


1) Is starting on a platform still worth it?

It depends on your answers to the following questions.

  1. Do you have an existing +10K follower base on any social media platform?
  2. Are you good at SEO or plan to learn it?
  3. Do you know how to code or want to build your website on a CMS like WordPress, Ghost, or Wix?
  4. Can you spare $2,000 to hire help in case you fail with SEO or programming?

If you answer yes to all of these questions, write a blog. Read this excellent guide by Natt Eliason, and stop reading this article now.

In all other cases, start on Medium.

Publishing is frictionless. You tap into an existing audience. Through publications, comments, and curation, you receive feedback on your writing. Data on reading time will give you additional insights. Plus, you don’t have to spend time finding sponsorships or affiliates for your website. You get paid based on the user’s reading time on your articles.

Even if Medium didn’t pay me a single cent, I’d write on the platform. I get thoughtful comments and 10–15 e-mail subscribers a day. I see the platform as a tool for learning and growing my business.

What you can do:

Create an account and enroll in the Medium Partnerships Program.


2) How to find endless ideas

When I wrote my first three articles, I feared I’d run out of ideas. But with a system in place, this won’t happen.

The more you create, the more creative you become. Research shows the best ideas will arise once you flow into the writing process.

Once you get the ideas, you want to capture them. Most of my ideas come while I write an article, read a book, or talk to friends. How I capture the ideas evolved over the months from Trello, to Notion, to Milanote.

v1 Idea Management on Trello March 2020 —July 2020 (Screenshot by author)
v2 Idea Management on Notion August 2020 —December 2020 (Screenshot by author)
v3 Idea Management on Milanote Jan 2021 —today (Screenshot by author)

But in the end, it’s less about the tool and more about a system. A lack of structure is a threat to creativity.

Thanks to the process of capturing everything on the go, I never start with an empty page. I know I have more ideas than I will ever be able to cover.

What you can do:

Pick your favorite tool and start collecting ideas today. What are you curious about? Do you have life lessons worth sharing? Any insights based on your studies or your profession? Write your first 10 article ideas and add a line or two. From now on, capture any idea.


“The essential ingredients for creativity remain exactly the same for everybody: courage, enchantment, permission, persistence, trust — and those elements are universally accessible.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert


3) The single metric you should measure

Unless you’ve written before, your first twenty articles will suck and not reach a broad audience. Don’t stress about it. Every good writer goes through self-doubt and the valley of despair.

The most important metric to measure is whether you created quality content. I found the Medium distribution guidelines very helpful for adding value to my writing.

Many first-time writers say they read and follow the guidelines when they don’t (me included).

How to spot it? They write journal-like entries instead of focusing on the reader. Burn the following advice from Medium’s editorial team into your mind:

“Does it add value for the reader? — Does it share new insights or perspectives? Offer an original take on a familiar issue? Does it stir emotions and/or thinking? Provide meaningful advice? Enrich a reader’s understanding of the topic? Does it feel like time well spent?”

Writing is different from journaling. Avoid using “I” too much. Posts are not about you but the reader. Always put the reader’s benefit first by putting yourself in their shoes. How can you derive actionable advice from your article? Where can you add more empathy for your reader?

Value creation is the single most important metric to focus on. Most successful writers I know went from a niche audience to a broader audience by focusing on the group of people they can truly help.

What you can do:

Study the distribution guidelines. Take notes. Read through the work of successful writers, such as Michael Thompson, Megan Holstein, and Niklas Göke.


4) Publish with big publications

Think about it this way: The official Headspace Youtube Channel with 425,000 subscribers would publish your article about meditating. You could reach almost half a million people without having to build this audience.

With Medium publications, you can do exactly that. Better Humans has almost 400,000 followers. If you publish an article with them, you can reach way more people than you would have ever reached by self-publishing.

Many writers feel demotivated by rejections and miss out on the power of publications.

You have to write quality content before big publications accept your work. Don’t feel angry if they don’t want you in the beginning. Your writing isn’t good enough yet.

I applied 9 times for Mind Cafe, 12 times to Better Humans, and 15 times to P.S.: I Love You before publishing with them. Some publications haven’t added me (yet). But I’ll try again and again.

What you can do:

Choose publications within your niche. Search for the top writers in your topic and look where the most successful articles were published.

Once you found your target publications read their submission guidelines and recent posts they published. Then, write quality content, and submit. Don’t feel discouraged by rejections. Be patient. Tapping into the existing audience is worth the wait.


5) Collect your reader’s emails

“You have to start collecting emails today,” Sinem Günel told me in one of our first coaching sessions.

I had just published my first article, and asking my 7 readers to sign up for a non-existing newsletter seemed hilarious.

But Sinem insisted: “Now is the right time to start one. If you’re trying to make money online, your email list is one of your biggest assets.”

A year and 1K+ subscribers later, I know she was right. Platforms change. Emails don’t. Your follower’s email address is their most permanent online identity.

What you can do:

Register on Convertkit, Mailchimp, Substack, or Mailerlite. I chose to go with Convertkit as it’s intuitive, free and helps me grow my audience. But again, the tool doesn’t matter that much. The important part is to get started.

Add a call to action at the bottom of each article. Until recently, my CTA was a fluffy “Do you want to connect? Sign-Up here”.

Don’t worry if you’re unsure about your newsletter’s content. I didn’t send a single email until six months in. But when I knew what I wanted to write about, I started with 400 subscribers.


6) Write headlines that make people click

Simple but sad: If your headline isn’t interesting, nobody will read your article. There’s so much great content that will never be read because the headline sucks. You can write the best blog post, but without a great headline, nobody will read it.

To succeed in online writing, you must learn to write great headlines. Writing headlines is unglamorous. That’s why many writers avoid practicing the craft.

But to make money with writing online, there’s no way around it. The best headlines make the reader curious, describe a transformation, offer a specific benefit, or a thought-provoking statement.

“I’ve written more than 15,000 headlines since I’ve started writing. Only one percent of them are really good. Those one percent of headlines I’ve written created 100 percent of my viral successes. Every single morning, I write down 10 ideas for headlines. […] I promise, if you don’t learn how to write good headlines, you’ll never have a career as a blogger. Never. So do it.”

— Ayodeji Awosika

What you can do:

Browse through your reading list and save the headlines that made you click. Write 10 headlines every morning before you start writing. Most writers never do it. By practicing, you gain a sustainable competitive advantage.


7) Use online tools to improve your writing

These tools won’t turn you into a professional writer; they will level up your writing process. These are the tools I use daily:

  • Improve your headlines with co-schedule
  • Format your headlines with Title Case Converter
  • Look beyond Unsplash pictures with Pexels, StockSnap, Freepik, or Burst
  • Run a health check with Grammarly or the Hemingway Editor
  • Look for alternative words with Thesaurus

Are you ready to increase your income?

Making money from online creation is a long-term game. You won’t see the desired results in the beginning. But if you keep working, you might suddenly hit a glass ceiling.

Progress is slow but exponential. Whenever you think about quitting, keep in mind, you’re in for the long term. Writing in 2021 isn’t hard.

Making money through writing works by providing value at scale. Here’s what to remember:

  • Enroll in the Medium partner program.
  • Collect every idea with your favorite tool.
  • Focus on creating value for the reader.
  • Pitch and publish with the big publications.
  • Start an email newsletter from day one.
  • Write ten headlines every day.
  • Use online tools to improve your texts.

Don’t waste time searching for a secret sauce. Use success stories as inspiration but don’t get lost in them. Creation is all that matters.

When looking at your metrics, don’t feel discouraged. Use data to analyze what works and do more of it. But apart from that, don’t agonize over low stats. Instead, spend all of your energy consistently creating user-centric content.

You’re not too late to the party. Today is the perfect time to start. Follow these steps and make a full-time living as an online writer.


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Filed Under: ✍🏽 Online Creators Tagged With: Entrepreneurship, Reflection, tutorial, Writing

Stephen King’s 8 Tips Can Improve Your Writing and Editing

March 30, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim


A guide from one of the greatest authors.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons, edited by Author

For the last 12 months, I’ve been absorbing advice from world-class writers.

One of the most useful books I read is Stephen King’s On Writing. He describes his writing journey and applicable lessons he learned along the way.

To date, King published 62 novels and is among the richest authors of our time. Here are his best tips.

1. You can learn only by doing

“You don’t need writing classes or seminars any more than you need this or any other book on writing. […] You learn best by reading a lot and writing a lot, and the most valuable lessons of all are the ones you teach yourself.”

— Stephen King

Every successful writer follows a writing schedule. King writes every morning. But the time doesn’t matter. What matters is that you sit down and write.

I read his book, searching for a secret sauce. But there’s none. If his success teaches us one thing, it’s that there are no shortcuts. You have to read a lot and write a lot.

2. Use rejections as resilience practice

“By the time I was fourteen (…) the nail in my wall would no longer support the weight of the rejection slips impaled upon it. I replaced the nail with a spike and went on writing.”

— Stephen King

As a young boy, King put the nail in his wall to collect the publisher’s rejection slips. But he didn’t look at it and feel discouraged. Instead, he used these slips as reminders for trying harder.

We all face rejection and failure. What differentiates the mediocre from the most successful writers is they never stop. Rejections don’t matter. But our reaction does.

Whenever you read a publisher’s ‘no,’ remember young King. Persistence ultimately pays off.

3. You should be the only person to judge your work

“I kept hearing Miss Hisler asking why I wanted to waste my talent, why I wanted to waste my time, why I wanted to write junk!”

— Stephen King

A movie inspired King to write his first commercial stories. After a cinema visit, he summarized the thriller on paper. He then printed the story and sold copies at his school. Another time, he wrote some not-so-kind words about one of his teachers for the school paper.

Both times teachers denounced his writing. They asked him to stop. When he didn’t, they sent him to work for a journal. King’s first paying job as a writer was the sports paper for a small-town.

Based on the teacher’s words, he depreciated writing horror stories. He thought of them as something serious people don’t do. Yet, he trusted his instincts and continued. If King followed his educator’s advice, he would have never become a world-class author.

Don’t stop because other people tell you to quit. There’s only one person who should choose what to do — you.

4. Treasure your relationships

“Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference. They don’t have to make speeches. Just believing is usually enough.”

— Stephen King

Carrie is King’s first published novel. But when he wrote the first pages, he didn’t like what he saw and tossed them into the bin. His wife found the pages. She was curious how the story of the 16-year-old girl with telepathic power would continue and urged King to continue.

Your loved ones believe in you when you fail to believe in yourself. Relationships provide crucial mental support for writers.

5. Master the art of deep work

“There should be no telephone in your writing room, certainly no TV or videogames for you to fool around with. Eliminate every possible distraction.”

— Stephen King

Cal Newport wasn’t born when King published his first novels. But likely, King’s work routine served as inspiration for ‘Deep Work.’

He creates a distraction-free environment. He banned his telephone, TV, videogames, and even YouTube from his writing space. That’s how King writes 2,000 words a day. He creates a 180,00 words novel in three-months.

If you get three focused hours of uninterrupted creation time, you solve most of your time management issues. Because once you’re in deep work and focus for an extended period, you immerse yourself in the activity in front of you.

When I write an article with LinkedIn open and my phone within reach, it takes me 5–6 hours. When I’m undistracted, I finish in 2–3. The equation is as follows:

High-Quality Work Produced = (Time Spent) x (Intensity of Focus)

6. Diffused thinking is as important as focused thinking

“Pow! Two unrelated ideas, adolescent cruelty and telekinesis, came together, and I had an idea.”

— Stephen King

To tackle any large task, our brains use the diffuse and focused mode. They have different purposes and to do your best work you need both of them.

We often optimize our days for focused mode thinking, for example, through deep work, flow states, and other highly productive sessions. Much of the learning process happens in this focused mode of thinking.

Yet, the diffuse mode is equally valuable. It only occurs when our minds can wander, e.g., during taking a shower or going for a lonely walk. Without actively thinking, our subconsciousness works on problems. While we feel like taking breaks, our mind continues to work for us.

King shares that the best novel ideas occurred to him while showering, driving, and taking his daily walk. Give your mind regular breaks. Your creativity will thank you for it.

7. 2nd Draft = 1st Draft — 10%

“The shorter the book, the less the bullshit.”

— Stephen King

On one of his rejection slips, an editor gave him invaluable advice. He wrote to him: “You need to revise for length. Formula: 2nd Draft = 1st Draft — 10%.” Here are some easy fixes for how to do it:

  • Replace adverbs with stronger verbs: The women said silently. → The women whispered.
  • Delete unnecessary “that’s” whenever you can. He feared that his brother loved the sandwich. → He feared his brother loved the sandwich.
  • Exchange nouns for verbs: He made the decision to meditate daily. → He decided to meditate daily.

Kill needless words and shorten long phrases. Or, as King says: “Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.”

8. Use the first words that come to your mind

“One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words.”

— Stephen King

It’s tempting to dress up your vocabulary. But when we try too hard, our writing becomes unnatural. It might even feel unrelatable.

Don’t disguise your language. Don’t obsess over the thesaurus for unnecessary fluff. The first word that comes to your mind is most often also the best one.

The best writers I know don’t try to sound intelligent. They use simple words in powerful ways. Whenever you catch yourself searching for ‘professional’ words, stop. Instead, use the vocabulary that first comes to your mind.


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Filed Under: ✍🏽 Online Creators Tagged With: Editing, Writing

3 Reasons to Write No Matter What Field You’re In

March 8, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim


Plus my tips on how to write consistently.

Vienna University of Business and Economics. (Photo by Ngai Man Yan from Pexels)

Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman was a genius, but he wasn’t a writer. He dictated his memoirs, and his friend transcribed the audio-tape.

Still, Feynman wrote. A lot. Because he realized something, many people don’t — writing equals working. He explains it in this interview:

Weiner: (Referring to Feynman’s journals) And so this represents the record of the day-to-day work.
Feynman: I actually did the work on the paper.
Weiner: That s right. It wasn’t a record of what you had done but it is the work.
Feynman: It’s the doing it — it’s the scrap paper.
Weiner: Well, the work was done in your head, but the record of it is still here.
Feynman: No, it’s not a record, not really, it’s working. You have to work on paper and this is the paper. OK?

Writing is working. But it’s so much more. Here are three reasons why you should write even if you’re not a writer.


1. When You Write, You Have to Understand and Think for Yourself

You can’t summarize an idea that you don’t really understand. So, through writing, you realize whether you truly got the concept or swim in the illusion of knowledge.

The problem is as follows, writes Schopenhauer:

“When we read, another person thinks for us: we merely repeat his mental process. … For the more one reads the fewer are the traces left of what one has read; the mind is like a tablet that has been written over and over. Hence it is impossible to reflect; and it is only by reflection that one can assimilate what one has read if one reads straight ahead without pondering over it later, what has been read does not take root, but is for the most part lost.”

Writing changes the game. You put pressure on your thinking. It forces you to push your thoughts into logic. And in this process, you learn and understand.

Scientists call this the Generation effect. In 1978, researchers discovered information is better remembered if it’s generated from one’s own mind rather than simply read.

And while research is still unclear about why it works, it has been shown to accelerate learning and remembering information.

You can’t just read through an idea, hear a conversation, or watch an online course to learn what’s in front of you. Learning requires effortful engagement.

“The one who does the work does the learning,” Doyle said. And when you write about what you read and think about, you do the work.

2. Writing Will Create Meaning in Your Life

There are more than writing’s benefits to learning and working. Writing helps us make sense of our lives. Or, as diarist Anaïs Nin writes:

“Writing to me means thinking, digging, pondering, creating, shattering. It means getting at the meaning of all things; it means reaching climaxes; it means moral and spiritual and physical life all in one. Writing implies manual labor, a strain on one’s conscience and an exercise of the mind. My life flows into ink and I am pleased.”

Think of Dumbledore’s pensive. When you put the wand to your head, the pen in your hand, you extract thoughts from your head. Once they flush into the bowl and on your paper, your thoughts take a different form.

Now you see your mind in front of you. Writing helps you see how seemingly unrelated thoughts connect with each other. That’s why writing is a mind-expanding, often even enlightening experience.

I wrote my first article on March 28, 2020. Since then, I write almost every morning. Writing has paid me +€15K. But I gained something that outpasses any monetary reward: I learned more about myself.

Once you see thousands of words and plenty of articles in front of you, you’ll start to see a pattern — a pattern that can tell you more about yourself than any life coach or any book ever will.

3. The More You Write the Better You’ll Get

In the past months, a lot of people told me they also want to write every day. But they don’t. Because deep inside of them is this belief that they can’t write.

Quantity trumps quality. The reason why most people feel they can’t write is that they’ve never really tried it. They’re stuck in a memory of their high-school writing.

My first few articles were bad. There was much resistance inside my head. I was scared. I obsessed. But what helped me get better was pushing myself to publish and to write more. And more. And more.

Research shows the more you create, the more creative you become. The best ideas and connections will arise once you flow into the writing process.

Don’t tell yourself you can’t write until you’ve really tried. If you don’t want to write it’s fine. Life is still great. But if you want to give it a try, don’t use your inability as an excuse. Publish 100 articles before you decide.


How to Write Consistently

Writing can be fun once you found your process. As with many skills you want to learn, starting is the hardest part. Here are the things that have helped me stick to writing for almost a year.

Set a writing schedule. Whether it’s daily, weekly, or bi-weekly is up to you. Block a time in the calendar and make it consistent.

Give yourself a time limit. According to Parkinson’s law, work expands to fill the time available for its completion. When you write, set yourself a timer. Aim to finish your writing before the timer is up. Even if you don’t, it’ll help you progress.

Write down topic ideas on the go. Keep a journal, or use your favorite note-taking app. When you go through everyday life, write down what you think you could write about.

  • What makes you curious?
  • What surprises you?
  • What can’t you stop thinking about?

Every thought that triggers your emotions is a good starting point. Don’t judge your ideas when you write them down. And don’t ever worry about what you’ll be writing about next month—consistency trumps strategy.

Practice in public. Writing is so much easier when you have a clear goal. You can start small. Set up a newsletter for your friends and tell them they’ll get one article a month. Publishing your work with others will also help you learn faster. Feedback is fuel for better writing. So don’t be shy and share your work.

“Everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”

— Sylvia Plath


Final Thoughts

Feynman was known to never settle for knowing a description of things. He wanted to discover the underlying truth. He really wanted to know, and it was curiosity that led him to his greatest work.

Use curiosity to guide your writing. Soon you’ll discover something about yourself you didn’t know before. All you need is time, motivation, and dedication.

So, when will you dare to write?


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Filed Under: ✍🏽 Online Creators Tagged With: learning, Writing

How to Create like Elizabeth Gilbert

November 24, 2020 by Eva Keiffenheim


Make your creativity work for you.

Photo by David Becker on Unsplash

Creativity is like Bertie Bott’s every flavor beans, a risk with every mouthful.

“You want to be careful with those. When they say every flavour, they mean every flavour — you know, you get all the ordinary ones like chocolate and peppermint and marmalade, but then you can get spinach and liver and tripe. George reckons he had a bogey flavoured one once.”

— Ron Weasley

With every new creation, you dare to eat another Bertie Bott. Even with a solid idea-to-paper process, your creativity will surprise you. You feel moody, surprised, vulnerable, depressed, and enthusiastic while writing the same paragraph. The dynamics make creative work harder than cognitive work, but you can learn to play with it.

Elizabeth Gilbert chewed more Bertie Botts than most of us. She’s been a writer for almost three decades and the personification of a self-made creative-genius. If you read her books about chasing happiness, 19th-century botany, and sexual liberation in the 40s, you’ll see nothing but growth.

From 2007 to 2019, her writing style and content depth drastically evolved. And, lucky for us, her 2015 book takes us through her insights on creativity. Here they are.


“When courage dies, creativity dies with it.”

Fear is part of any creative process. You might fear your lack of talent, inspiration, professionalism, experience. You might fear other people’s opinions, or, even worse, your own judgment. You might fear you’re too old or too young to start. See? Fear is intertwined with creativity.

“Your fear will always be triggered by your creativity because creativity asks you to enter into realms of uncertain outcome, and fear hates uncertain outcome,” Gilbert writes. “In fact, it seems to me that my fear and my creativity are basically conjoined twins — as evidenced by the fact that creativity cannot take a single step forward without fear marching right alongside it.”

You don’t need to be fearless to strive for your creative endeavors. But don’t let fear take the lead. Gilbert uses a car metaphor to describe the role of fear: “You’re allowed to have a seat, and you’re allowed to have a voice, but you are not allowed to have a vote.”

Courage isn’t the opposite of fear. Courage is to feel fear but risk it anyway.


“You can measure your worth by your dedication to your path, not by your successes or failures.”

Focusing on things outside of your control will leave you frustrated. You can’t influence how people react to your work. It’s pointless to measure your worth by external reactions, like monetary rewards, audience reach, or editor opinions.

All you can influence is your creative process.

Focus on the dedication to your path. Or, as Gilbert writes, “work with all your heart, because — I promise — if you show up for your work, day after day after day after day, you just might get lucky enough some random morning to burst right into bloom.”

When we look at the work of successful writers, we only see the tip of the iceberg. We envy other writer’s success but don’t look at the dedicated work they’ve done for years. We admire the great works of George R.R. Martin and Stephen King but forget how even they still struggle through the hard work of the creative process.

You have to stick to your path, even if you’ve achieved your definition of success.

“Most of my writing life consists of nothing more than unglamorous, disciplined labor. I sit at my desk, and I work like a farmer, and that’s how it gets done,” Gilbert writes. “No matter how great your teachers may be, and no matter how esteemed your academy’s reputation, eventually you will have to do the work by yourself.”

See? There’s no magic. No fast track. You have to drag yourself through ups and downs and eventually, just do the work.

Don’t wait for inspiration to strike you. Measure your progress by your dedication to writing. Inspiration and fear will join you along the way.


“Most things have already been done — but they have not yet been done by you.”

I remember my writing coach’s words, Sinem Günel, who told me a harsh truth in one of our first coaching sessions. Unless I’m a scientific researcher, she said, I shouldn’t expect to create any groundbreaking work.

While I first felt offended — I wanted to innovate education with every written word — this also took away the pressure.

You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. All you need is to describe your experiences with the wheel and how it can benefit others.

As Gilbert put it: “Once you put your own expression and passion behind an idea, that idea becomes yours. Authenticity beats originality. While the latter often feels like an extraneous attempt to create something new, authenticity brings an inner serenity that creates calm resonance with your readers.”

Every great writer imitates before they find their own voice. Saying what you want to say is the definition of authenticity. Don’t worry about the degree of innovation.

This is what artist Austin Kleon meant when he wrote, “Every new idea is just a mashup or a remix of one or more previous ideas.”


“Debt will always be the abattoir of creative dreams.”

Creativity works best when there’s no pressure attached to it. Your inspiration creeps away when it feels the burden to feed a household. Plus, worries don’t go well with your creative flow.

To make creativity work for you, you’re better off keeping a job that can pay your bills.

Elizabeth committed to becoming a writer in her early twenties. Yet, she didn’t go to an expensive school to learn to write. Instead, she made a living on jobs like bartending, tutoring, flea-marketing, or waitressing. And meanwhile, she wrote every day throughout her twenties.

“I held on to my day jobs for so long because I wanted to keep my creativity free and safe,” she writes. “I knew better than to ask this of my writing because, over the years, I have watched so many other people murder their creativity by demanding that their art pay the bills. ”

Don’t drive your creativity away by relying on monetary rewards too early in your career. Instead, have a job that pays you bills while you create without monetary pressure.


“Learning how to endure your disappointment and frustration is part of the job of a creative person.”

Almost any creator can relate to the disappointing feeling after a rejection. But turndowns are part of any creative journey. If one creates with courage, one will face refusal again and again.

Elizabeth writes that she stacked all her rejection letters in one place. Every time she got a rejection from a publisher, she sent a new application at the same time: Whenever I got those rejection letters, then, I would permit my ego to say aloud to whoever had signed it: “You think you can scare me off? I’ve got another eighty years to wear you down!”

If you want to unleash your creative potential, you have to see rejection as part of the process. If you dare to reach high, hearing a lot of no’s is unavoidable. By playing the long-term game, you can stick to the process.

“The world is filled with too many unfinished manuscripts as it is, and I didn’t want to add another one to that bottomless pile. So no matter how much I thought my work stank, I had to persist,” Gilbert writes. “You try and try and try, and nothing works. But you keep trying, and you keep seeking, and then sometimes, in the least expected place and time, it finally happens.”


In Conclusion

Generalizing creative writing advice is hard since every brain works differently. What is good for Elizabeth Gilbert might not have the same benefits for you.

And while these five insights have been useful to my creative journey, they might be useless for someone who’s at a different stage of their creative process.

But if your goal is to create great content, support others, share your knowledge and struggles, and eventually make money online, these five pearls of wisdom can help.

  1. Courage means to feel fear but risk it anyway.
  2. Measure your success by the dedication to your path.
  3. Authenticity beats originality.
  4. Create without monetary pressure.
  5. Endure disappointment and keep on trying.

Creative work is like Bertie Bott’s beans. But if you dare to eat them despite your fear, one day after another, you’re on your journey towards your best creative self. In the words of Gilbert:

“The essential ingredients for creativity remain exactly the same for everybody: courage, enchantment, permission, persistence, trust — and those elements are universally accessible.”


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Filed Under: ✍🏽 Online Creators Tagged With: Writing

The Two Learning Curves First Time Writers Need to Master

November 5, 2020 by Eva Keiffenheim


It’s not only how you write but also what you write that matters.

Photo: Joshua Welch/Pexels

Many new writers start with an illusory superiority. Naïve as I was, I expected my first article to be a hit. Journaling, academic work, and well-rated high-school essays made me overestimate my writing ability. Together with all the other writers who start with overconfidence, I was on top of what social psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger label the ‘Mount Stupid.’

According to their research, incompetent people overestimate their own competence and, failing to sense a discrepancy between their performance and what is desirable, see no need to learn or improve. New writers know so little, they fail to see what they don’t know.

“We start at a disadvantage for several reasons. One is that when we’re incompetent, we tend to overestimate our competence and see little reason to change,” cognitive researchers Roediger & McDaniel write about this phenomenon. “To become more competent, we must learn to recognize competence when we see it in others, become more accurate judges of what we ourselves know and don’t know, adopt learning strategies that get results, and find objective ways to track our progress.”

Many new writers never get to this point. They quit after the disappointment of a bad performing first article. Or they gave up because of the daunting number of skills neccessary to become a prolific writer. While overcoming the first, I almost quit because of the latter. Comparing oneself to Niklas Göke, Michael Thompson, Ali Mese, or Megan Holstein can feel demotivating.

Yet, the few new writers that move past this point embark on an exciting learning path. Writing is one of the rare professions that offer a ticket to life-long learning. Here are the two learning curves that make writing worth mastering:

Curve 1: Learning how to articulate your ideas

Writing includes much more than writing. It’s not as simple as having an idea, writing it down, publishing, and watch it reach millions of readers. New writers often fail to acknowledge the micro-steps that are neccessary to move from idea generation to a well-articulated article.

Items on the first learning curve help new writers to organize their thoughts and pack them into a neat, coherent package:

  • content consumption as sources of inspiration
  • researching and applying for publications
  • a solid idea-to-paper process
  • writing clickable, non-clickbaity headlines
  • choosing article pictures
  • writing powerful introductions
  • engaging the reader using an appropriate style
  • editing articles including proofreading, writing flow, word choice, and grammar
  • formatting the article according to respective publication style guides

While the number of items might feel overwhelming, countless guides can help to gain mastery. For example, Cynthia Marinakos offers excellent advice on headline writing, Niklas Göke on the skill of captivating introductions, and Ali Mese provides a useful grammar cheat sheet.

How fast you move on this learning curve depends on your mindset and your discipline. After reading six books and taking three writing online courses, I’ve noticed a recurring statement: the only way to improve your writing is to write.

An open, learning mindset helps to digest and apply everything you learn from people more experienced than you and reach out to people you look up to. But a daily writing praxis is what makes you hone your craft.

Your speed on the first learning curve depends on mindset and consistency.

Curve 2: Becoming an expert in your writing areas

If you want it or not, you become an expert in the topics you write about. When you write about personal finance, you’ll know your way around money management. If you write about attention fragmentation, you might be able to recite a list of ten things you can do immediatly to minimize technological distractions.

When we write, we elaborate. “Elaboration is the process of giving new material meaning by expressing it in your own words and connecting it with what you already know,” cognitive researchers define. And elaboration, as this study showed, is one of the most effective learning strategies.

And as you become an expert on the topics you write about, it’s important to make a conscious choice. When you accept a writing client you don’t want to represent, you’ll soon find yourself in cognitive dissonance, meaning your actions don’t match your beliefs. You’ll represent something you no longer want to represent.

Nicolas Cole included a great tip for this learning curve in his current book on online writing. “In your first six months of writing online, you should be less concerned with “establishing” yourself and more focused on “discovering” yourself,” he wrote. Once you know what you enjoy writing about and see the data from what people want to read, you can move on.

“If you start writing about marketing strategies, but data tells you it’s your stories about being an angel investor people love reading most, you should pay attention to that. If you start writing sci-fi, but you discover it’s actually your historical fiction people are flocking to, data is trying to tell you something. If you start writing poetry, but you find your morning meditations are what get dozens of people to comment and engage with your writing, what are you going to do? Keep writing poetry? Once data enters the equation, this is where the “Who Do I Want To Be?” conversation gets interesting.”

— Nicolas Cole in The Art and Business of Online Writing

Closing thoughts

Writing is a life-long learning journey. It’s one of the rare jobs you (eventually) get paid for acquiring new knowledge.

Once you move up on both learning curves, writing will feel more natural. At the same time, one curve doesn’t go without the other. If you’re great at articulating your ideas but no expert in the topics you write about, you do not realize your full writing potential. The opposite is true as well: If you are a topic expert but don’t know how to articulate what you want to say, there’s no way you can get through to your readers.

To move from a new writer to a prolific writer, we must watch out for both learning curves. Fostering a growth mindset, learning from the best, experimenting, and deciding on a writing genre helps.

Whatever you’re doing, keep in mind: writing is one of those rare jobs where you get paid for learning. So, it’s worth doing the work it takes to improve your craft. Cambridge Editors’ Blog puts it best:

“Writing takes hard work and practice, just like everything else. If you want to be a good writer you need to put in the effort, plain and simple. And that means anyone can be a writer so long as they are willing to put in the work. It’s a comforting thought.”


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Filed Under: ✍🏽 Online Creators Tagged With: Writing

9 Free Writing Tools That Helped Me Make $4,167 In One Month

September 18, 2020 by Eva Keiffenheim


They can do the same for you.

Photo by Khachik Simonian on Unsplash

Let’s get this clear: Your writing won’t bring you money because of these tools.

Sitting down to write will make your writing better. With quantity comes quality, my writing coach continues used to say. And she was right.

I wrote my first Medium article on March 27. Since then, I have published 55 pieces with a >80% curation rate. In August, I earned $4,167 on Medium alone.

Screenshot by Author

And while these tools won’t turn you into a professional writer, they will level up your writing process.

Whether you’re struggling with headlines, keeping a writing routine, or are non-native speakers, these priceless tools will help.


1 Manage Your Articles With Trello

Trello is an idea keeper, a writing tracker, and a motivation booster. Here’s how I use my Trello Board, from left to right:

  • Medium Article Ideas
  • Working Projects
  • Articles Submitted to Publications
  • Articles Rejected by Publications that need Reediting
  • Articles Published

When to use it:

Your Trello board will be useful on five occasions.

  1. When an idea strikes you. Add the title or the idea as a new card to your very left corner. You can also access it from mobile. Write down everything that comes to your mind.
  2. When you start writing. Because of all the article ideas on your board, you’ll never have to worry about a blank page in front of you. When you start a new story, pick one of your ideas, drag them to the “Working Projects” column, and start writing.
  3. When you hit publish. This is a motivational booster. It feels great to move a working project card to the “articles submitted” column. In the card add a date when you expect to hear back. Thereby, you’ll see when you need to follow-up or submit your piece to another publication.
  4. When the publication publishes or rejects your piece. Being rejected is part of every writer’s journey. Move your card to “rejected” and improve your piece. Then, give it a new shot at another publication.
  5. When a publication publishes your piece. Boom! You’ll move your card from “submitted to publication” to “published.”
Screenshot by Author

2 Improve Your Headlines with Co-Schedule

Most writers ignore this fact. They write great content and bad headlines. Yet, readers will never read your writing if your headline isn’t catchy.

Nobody will read your article if your headline sucks.

I ignored this fact until I completed Benjamin Hardy, PhD’s online course writing course. He takes 20–30 minutes every time he writes an article. He’d jot down 10–30 headlines before he starts to write.

Headline writing is a craft. It leaves the reader asking questions and wanting more.

Headlines consist of a combination of words. And while there are great articles on headline hacks, this tool does a quick check-up for you.

When to use it:

Opinions vary on this one. I love to find the headline before I start writing. It’ll help me frame my idea in various contexts. Moreover, a clear headline will help you structure the content.

Screenshot by Author

3 Format Your Headlines With Title Case Converter

After you mastered the balancing act of crafting a headline that grabs the reader’s attention, you’ll want to format it. Many publications reject articles because of their first impression.

When to use it:

I use Title Case Converter before I paste the headline into my story.

Screenshot by Author

4 Look Beyond Unsplash Pictures

After you’ve leveled up your writing with a great and proper formatted headline, you want to make sure you choose an awesome picture.

Search images by emotions instead of keywords. Pick a picture that supports the feeling you’re trying to convey. Tim Denning is an incredible picture picker.

When you analyze his images, you’ll see he searches beyond Medium’s built-in Unsplash feature. Here’s a list of links to free high-quality stock images:

  • Pexels
  • StockSnap
  • Reshot
  • Pixabay
  • Flickr
  • Freepik
  • Burst

When to use it:

After you set and formatted the headline, and before you start writing.


5 Use A Leftover Graveyard To Edit Without Mercy

Excellent writing requires ruthless editing. A leftover graveyard is a simple tool for producing clear, dense, and solid writing.

It’s a simple text document containing every phrase that wasn’t good enough to remain in your piece but was too beautiful to be deleted.

With every passage, ask yourself: Does this add value for the reader?

If the answer is yes, keep what you wrote. If the answer is nay, move sections or words to your graveyard. Every time you doubt whether you should delete a sentence, cut the sentence out, and paste it into your leftover document.

When to use it:

When you do the editing after you’ve written your article.

Screenshot by Author

6 Engage Your Reader With Thesaurus

If you’re also a non-native English speaker, a synonym finder is a pure piece of gold. It’ll find words outside of your vocabulary and give you suggestions on how to use them.

By adding variety to your writing, you’ll make your texts more interesting.

When to use it:

I use it at the same time as the leftover graveyard. In my first round of editing, I’d cut out everything that’s not needed and look for words that make the writing better.

Screenshot by Author

7 Run a Health Check With Grammarly

Grammarly has gained a lot of popularity within the last year. And it’s well-deserved. This writing tool checks your writing for grammar and punctuation mistakes.

And, in the pro-version, it also offers suggestions on how to replace your words.

Yet, don’t let Grammarly ruin your copy. It’ll sometimes be very strict on suggestions and make you want to reach the 99, even though a 78 score might be more authentic and humane.

When to use it:

To ensure it’ll not change your message, only use it after your round of self-editing. A grammar health check will give your piece the final touch.

Screenshot by Author

8 Do A Second Audit With The Hemmingway App

Even though I love Grammarly, it’s not perfect. So anytime I submit a piece, I’d make it run through the Hemingway App and look for phrases that are very hard to read.

Most of the times, the very hard to read phrases contain some logical errors. I’ll try to split them into two sentences or change the overall structure.

By focusing on clear, logical writing throughout your entire article, you’ll attract more readers, and, after all, take your writing to the next level.

When to use it:

After you’ve run your writing through Grammarly and before you hit publish.

Screenshot by Author

9 Analyze Your Articles With an Excel Sheet

I first learned about this sheet in Sinem’s Medium Writing Academy. It’s a self-made excel sheet you can use after you publish your article. It serves as an analyzer and a motivator.

This sheet helps you to do more of what works well. Moreover, this system helps you keep track of the number of articles published, your curation tags, and the publications you’ve published with. You can use your sheet to set your writing KPIs.

When to use it:

Once a publication published your piece add all the details to the sheet. Once a month, add the stats and the numbers.

Screenshot by Author

Do you want to learn more about my writing journey? Join the E-Mail List.

Filed Under: ✍🏽 Online Creators Tagged With: Tools, Writing

9 Free Writing Tools That Helped Me Make $4,167 a Month

September 18, 2020 by Eva Keiffenheim


Let’s get this clear: Your writing won’t bring you money because of these tools.

Sitting down to write will make your writing better. With quantity comes quality, my writing coach continues used to say. And she was right.

I wrote my first Medium article on March 27. Since then, I have published 55 pieces with a >80% curation rate. In August, I earned $4,167 on Medium alone.

Screenshot by Author

And while these tools won’t turn you into a professional writer, they will level up your writing process.

Whether you’re struggling with headlines, keeping a writing routine, or are non-native speakers, these priceless tools will help.


1 Manage Your Articles With Trello

Trello is an idea keeper, a writing tracker, and a motivation booster. Here’s how I use my Trello Board, from left to right:

  • Medium Article Ideas
  • Working Projects
  • Articles Submitted to Publications
  • Articles Rejected by Publications that need Reediting
  • Articles Published

When to use it:

Your Trello board will be useful on five occasions.

  1. When an idea strikes you. Add the title or the idea as a new card to your very left corner. You can also access it from mobile. Write down everything that comes to your mind.
  2. When you start writing. Because of all the article ideas on your board, you’ll never have to worry about a blank page in front of you. When you start a new story, pick one of your ideas, drag them to the “Working Projects” column, and start writing.
  3. When you hit publish. This is a motivational booster. It feels great to move a working project card to the “articles submitted” column. In the card add a date when you expect to hear back. Thereby, you’ll see when you need to follow-up or submit your piece to another publication.
  4. When the publication publishes or rejects your piece. Being rejected is part of every writer’s journey. Move your card to “rejected” and improve your piece. Then, give it a new shot at another publication.
  5. When a publication publishes your piece. Boom! You’ll move your card from “submitted to publication” to “published.”
Screenshot by Author

2 Improve Your Headlines with Co-Schedule

Most writers ignore this fact. They write great content and bad headlines. Yet, readers will never read your writing if your headline isn’t catchy.

Nobody will read your article if your headline sucks.

I ignored this fact until I completed Benjamin Hardy, PhD’s online course writing course. He takes 20–30 minutes every time he writes an article. He’d jot down 10–30 headlines before he starts to write.

Headline writing is a craft. It leaves the reader asking questions and wanting more.

Headlines consist of a combination of words. And while there are great articles on headline hacks, this tool does a quick check-up for you.

When to use it:

Opinions vary on this one. I love to find the headline before I start writing. It’ll help me frame my idea in various contexts. Moreover, a clear headline will help you structure the content.

Screenshot by Author

3 Format Your Headlines With Title Case Converter

After you mastered the balancing act of crafting a headline that grabs the reader’s attention, you’ll want to format it. Many publications reject articles because of their first impression.

When to use it:

I use Title Case Converter before I paste the headline into my story.

Screenshot by Author

4 Look Beyond Unsplash Pictures

After you’ve leveled up your writing with a great and proper formatted headline, you want to make sure you choose an awesome picture.

Search images by emotions instead of keywords. Pick a picture that supports the feeling you’re trying to convey. Tim Denning is an incredible picture picker.

When you analyze his images, you’ll see he searches beyond Medium’s built-in Unsplash feature. Here’s a list of links to free high-quality stock images:

  • Pexels
  • StockSnap
  • Reshot
  • Pixabay
  • Flickr
  • Freepik
  • Burst

When to use it:

After you set and formatted the headline, and before you start writing.


5 Use A Leftover Graveyard To Edit Without Mercy

Excellent writing requires ruthless editing. A leftover graveyard is a simple tool for producing clear, dense, and solid writing.

It’s a simple text document containing every phrase that wasn’t good enough to remain in your piece but was too beautiful to be deleted.

With every passage, ask yourself: Does this add value for the reader?

If the answer is yes, keep what you wrote. If the answer is nay, move sections or words to your graveyard. Every time you doubt whether you should delete a sentence, cut the sentence out, and paste it into your leftover document.

When to use it:

When you do the editing after you’ve written your article.

Screenshot by Author

6 Engage Your Reader With Thesaurus

If you’re also a non-native English speaker, a synonym finder is a pure piece of gold. It’ll find words outside of your vocabulary and give you suggestions on how to use them.

By adding variety to your writing, you’ll make your texts more interesting.

When to use it:

I use it at the same time as the leftover graveyard. In my first round of editing, I’d cut out everything that’s not needed and look for words that make the writing better.

Screenshot by Author

7 Run a Health Check With Grammarly

Grammarly has gained a lot of popularity within the last year. And it’s well-deserved. This writing tool checks your writing for grammar and punctuation mistakes.

And, in the pro-version, it also offers suggestions on how to replace your words.

Yet, don’t let Grammarly ruin your copy. It’ll sometimes be very strict on suggestions and make you want to reach the 99, even though a 78 score might be more authentic and humane.

When to use it:

To ensure it’ll not change your message, only use it after your round of self-editing. A grammar health check will give your piece the final touch.

Screenshot by Author

8 Do A Second Audit With The Hemmingway App

Even though I love Grammarly, it’s not perfect. So anytime I submit a piece, I’d make it run through the Hemingway App and look for phrases that are very hard to read.

Most of the times, the very hard to read phrases contain some logical errors. I’ll try to split them into two sentences or change the overall structure.

By focusing on clear, logical writing throughout your entire article, you’ll attract more readers, and, after all, take your writing to the next level.

When to use it:

After you’ve run your writing through Grammarly and before you hit publish.

Screenshot by Author

9 Analyze Your Articles With an Excel Sheet

I first learned about this sheet in Sinem’s Medium Writing Academy. It’s a self-made excel sheet you can use after you publish your article. It serves as an analyzer and a motivator.

This sheet helps you to do more of what works well. Moreover, this system helps you keep track of the number of articles published, your curation tags, and the publications you’ve published with. You can use your sheet to set your writing KPIs.

When to use it:

Once a publication published your piece add all the details to the sheet. Once a month, add the stats and the numbers.

Screenshot by Author

Filed Under: ✍🏽 Online Creators Tagged With: Medium, Tools, Writing

How a Leftover Graveyard Will Make You Edit Without Mercy

September 7, 2020 by Eva Keiffenheim


A simple tool for producing clear, dense, and solid writing.

Photo by Anna-Louise from Pexels

The first draft of anything is always shit, Hemingway used to say. And as a writer, your own experience will attest to the quote’s truth.

You know you need to be a merciless editor to get the best out of your articles. To seduce your readers, you need to distill the quintessence of your writing.

Yet, most of us are lousy editors. We’d rather clinch to the clutter in our pieces than deleting parts of our creations.

Humans avoid pain, so it’s natural we desist editing. It hurts. Deleting the words you carefully put on the paper feels like cycling backward.

There are two options to ease the ache. You‘re either fortunate enough to afford an editor or using a leftover graveyard.

I used the latter for my past 39 Medium articles. 35 were curated and resulted in over $4k Medium Partner Program income in August alone.

And as I feel much of the article’s performance is attributed to my leftover graveyard, I want to share this simple tool with you.

In the following lines, you’ll learn what it is and how you can set up your own.

What is a Leftover Graveyard

A leftover graveyard is a fancy name for a simple text document. It’s an archive containing every phrase that wasn’t good enough to remain in your piece but was too beautiful to be deleted.

A leftover graveyard’s sole purpose is to store all words and sentences you’re hesitant to delete. You cut out all fluff from your original piece and bury it in your graveyard. You’ll remove all the clutter as all your semi-rare sentences move to the document. Thereby, your leftover graveyard will make your writing more clear, dense, and solid.

It’s a psychological trick. You delete your words without deleting them forever. In case you miss your words or want to reuse them for other articles, you know where to find them.

I started with one big graveyard, but as I love to scroll through the graveyard’s to find inspiration, I split them into three different ones. I have one for business, one for love, and one for education.

Pictured by Author

How to Set Up A Leftover Graveyard

You don’t need any fancy tools to make your own one. All you need is a simple text document. I use a google sheet because the cloud makes it accessible from anywhere.

Here’s how my business graveyard looks from inside the document. You see sentence fragments that I cut off from writing a piece on spending less time on your phone.

Pictured by Author

Once you have the document set up, you’re ready to use it for your editing process.

How to Use It to Edit without Mercy

Your editing graveyard will fill with your first round of editing. That’s when you’ll start to burry your words. Every time you go over a written piece to improve it, open your leftover graveyard.

With every passage, ask yourself: Does this add value for the reader?

If the answer is yes, keep what you wrote. If the answer is nay, move sections or words to your graveyard. Every time you doubt whether you should delete a sentence, cut the sentence out, and paste it into your leftover document.

In case you miss the cutout part, you’ll be able to copy it back to your text anytime. When you feel something should be added, revisit your graveyard and take back sentences that add value for your readers.

Moreover, you can use this graveyard as inspiration when you’re crafting a new piece. I love to scroll through my leftover graveyard from time to add article ideas to my Trello board or to reuse sentence structures I haven’t used so far.

Final Words

Excellent writing requires ruthless editing. Using a leftover graveyard has helped me to make a full-time income from my writing. If that’s your goal, I hope this simple trick does the same for you.

By editing with a leftover graveyard, you’ll have the quintessence left. Your readers will want to read your articles until the end. Your writing, your rules. Use whatever works for you. Ultimately, you determine which process elevates your written words.


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Filed Under: ✍🏽 Online Creators Tagged With: Editing, Writing

19 Things I Learned About Writing From My $699 Medium Coach

June 15, 2020 by Eva Keiffenheim


90 hours of coaching broken down into 7 mins for you

Photo by KOBU Agency on Unsplash

Benjamin Franklin once said,

“An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.”

This spring, I followed the advice and invested $699 in a medium coaching program. Until April, I hadn’t written anything except for 150 pages of academia and 1350 pages in my bullet journals. Since April, I’ve published 16 articles on medium and filed the resignation for my 9–5 job.

Here are 19 essential lessons I’ve learned about writing from my professional medium coach, and Benjamin Hardy, PhD’s online writing course:


1. If you’re a new writer, focus on white space

The less experienced you’re with writing, the more white space you’ll need. Section breaks, paragraphs, and subtitles help you deliver your message.

My first articles are living proof that white space works. I published this article before my first coaching session and this one after it. To this date, the first article earned 9$, the second 127$. These numbers show my medium coach was right about the importance of white space.

Reserve your longer paragraphs for the time you found your writing voice. Gary Provost, a famous American author, once demonstrated how to write longer passages that sound like music:

This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals–sounds that say, “Listen to this, it is important.”


2. Publish 100 articles before you expect anything

A writing career isn’t linear. In the beginning, while you’re learning the craft, don’t expect to earn anything. As with everything in life, there’s no such thing as an overnight success.

Making a living from writing is the result of hard work. Authors earning >2000$ on medium or other platforms have spent months practicing.

You can reach writing success as well if you’re willing to put in the work.

Most writers lose faith in their abilities before reaching exponential growth. Following my coach’s advice, I committed to publishing 100 articles before expecting any return on my time investment.


3. The only way to improve your writing is by writing

The only way to get better in writing is to sit down and write. Thinking about writing, speaking about writing, and reading about writing won’t be nearly as effective as writing.

Once my coach asked me the following question, and my writing practice changed:

Do you know there’s a difference between creation and consumption time?

While consuming is all about reading and learning, creating is the process of putting words on paper.

Here’s how I track writing vs. consuming time. Tracking helps me to find a balance between learning and writing.

Image By Author

4. Writing quality will improve with writing quantity

The quality of your words will increase with practice. Instead of editing yourself a fourth time, focus on producing more content.

As an economist, I’d label it as the diminishing return of editing: The longer you edit one article, the later you start a new one.

Ben Hardy explained it’s better to publish a lousy piece than not publish at all. Some of the articles he resisted to publish, went viral afterward.

Unless you stop editing a piece and spend your time on writing a new one, you don’t create. Don’t be too critical on yourself and identify perfectionism as another form of procrastination.

Publish before you think your piece is perfect. Writing quality will improve with quantity.


5. Build a daily writing/creating habit

To write a lot, you need a writing routine. While plenty of articles tout specific writing routines, you know best what works for you.

I get up at 6 AM, practice yoga, journal and meditate. At 6:40 AM, I start writing. By 9 AM, I’ve done all of my creative work and ride to work.

It doesn’t matter which routine you decide on, as long as you stick to the habit. Or, as Austin Kleon puts it:

“What your daily routine consists of is not that important. What’s important is that the routine exists. Cobble together your own routine, stick to it most days, break from it once in a while for fun, and modify it as necessary.”

Ask yourself,

When can you make time to write and focus without distraction?

What helps you getting into your creative state?


6. Always ask, “What’s in it for my readers?”

I felt incredibly proud to publish my first pieces. But my mentor made me realize my articles equaled personal journal entries. She asked:

Do you write for yourself, or do you write for your readers?

One should never write without your readers in mind. Here are some helpful questions, both from my mentor and the medium curation guidelines:

What’s in it for your readers?

Is your piece written for the reader?

Does this add value for the reader?

What do you want your readers to take away?

Which feelings do you aim to provoke?


7. Headlines make or break your stories success

Headlines are the entryway for your readers. If your headline doesn’t spark your readers’ interest, they won’t bother to read the first lines of your well-crafted introduction.

Benjamin Hardy jots down 10–20 headline versions for each of his pieces before he determines the best one. I follow this advice by spending 20 minutes on brainstorming headlines. Being strategic about headlines helps you reach more readers.


8. Check headlines, instead of your stats

My coach caught me on the spot with this one. Here’s what she said:

“The first times you get curated and published with bigger publications, it’s tempting to check your stats again and again. Especially if one article got published in a publication.

But instead of reviewing your cents trickling down, use your time wisely and study successful writer’s headline.”

Instead of checking your stats, study virality. Look at successful writer’s headlines, like Jessica Wildfire, Niklas Göke, Kris Gage, Liz Huber, and Tim Denning.


9. Combine logical with emotional writing

Before mentoring, I thought the number of high-quality sources lead to popularity. It turns out I’m wrong.

The combination of head and heart knowledge makes a story unique.

I come from academia, and it’s easy for me to combine other writer’s logic and craft a coherent story. However, when you look at best-performing articles on medium (like this one, this one, or this one), you’ll realize they don’t sound like peer-reviewed papers. Readers aren’t looking for pure facts.

Instead, it’s your personal experience, combined with a touch of logic, that speaks to your reader’s heart and triggers reactions. To start an article, my coach asked me the following helping questions:

What are the things you can’t stop thinking about?

What are you excited, angry, upset or inspired about?

Which difficult experience did you encounter and what helped you to overcome this?


10. Search images by emotions, instead of keywords

Choose a picture that supports the emotional message you’re trying to convey. Your answers to the questions above offer a great starting point for image search.

In the beginning, I used my pictures and searched at other platforms for the perfect image. But top medium stories demonstrate, in most cases, the built-in Unsplash image search is enough. While crafting your article, click on the + symbol and select the loupe. Then type in your emotion-triggering keyword.

Image By Author

11. Structure your article bones to write faster

Working for days on the same piece can leave you frustrated. Particularly, if you can’t see any progress. For writing development, Ben Hardy’s practice helped me the most. It might help you as well if you tend to get lost in your writing process. Here’s what he said:

“Always start with the headlines, then get all of the subsections.

Once you’ve got the subsections title them in powerful ways.

Once you’ve got the subsections titled, get quotes for each subsection or other essential elements you need.

Once you have these bones formed, begin writing.”


12. When you write, — write

Once you have the bones formed, focus on writing. When you stop for research or edit yourself, you break your flow state.

Focus on putting words on the paper. Don’t stop your flow. Don’t look for more knowledge. Use abbreviations for flowing through your craft.

  • LINK if you want to link something later on write
  • CHECK if you need to double-check what you’ve just written use
  • IMG in case you want to add an image or graphic

Editing and researching interrupt your flow state. Add all of the above once you’re done with the first draft of your piece. When you write, just write.


13. When you don’t feel like writing, write

As said in the beginning, writing quality improves with quantity. Hence, you need to write consistently. When you don’t write, you don’t produce content. You don’t learn. You don’t improve.

Create environments that help you to write. In case you don’t know how to focus without distraction, no matter what, read Cal Newport’s Deep Work. If you only have a limited amount of time for writing, focus on smaller tasks like researching headlines, images, or coming up with new ideas.

On days, where you don’t feel like writing, try to compose the worst piece you can. It’ll make your process more fun.


14. Bury mediocre passages in your editing graveyard

Editing can hurt. Deleting entire phrases might feel like going backward. But to craft excellent writing, you should edit without compromise. Mediocre sentences will ultimately lead to average articles. Not every word you typed deserves to stay in your piece.

A document that serves as editing graveyard can help. This document has the sole purpose of editing more strictly and not clunch to useless words. You cut out all fluff from your original piece and bury it in your paper. In case you miss your words or want to reuse them for other articles, you know where to find them.

If you’re unsure whether to keep or destroy a passage, read the entire paragraph out loud. Your voice is a great editing tool after you’ve written your piece.


15. Use a system to manage your ideas and articles

The more you write, the more critical it is to keep an overview. Inspired by my medium coach, I use Trello for ideas and article management. Here’s how I use Trello:

Image By Author

In the column “ideas,” I store all headline and topic ideas. I prefill most idea cards with an outline and the described bones structure. Prefilled content helps to get into writing quickly. You no longer have to sit and wait in front of a blank piece of paper, waiting for ideas to cross your mind.

Once I started putting an idea onto paper, the Trello card moves to “working projects.” Some longer articles, like this one, linger around in “working projects” for a few days as I add ideas to the piece in several writing sessions.

When I finished editing the article and found both the headline and an emotion-provoking picture, I submit the article to a publication. In the “submitted to publication” column is a timestamp on every card that indicates when I expect to hear back from the publication.

In case publications rejected my article, I move the card to the “re-edit” column as my work needs further improvement. If a publication publishes my piece, I slide the card to “published.”

All articles in the “published” column receive an entry in my article overview sheet, which looks like this:

Image By Author

This excel sheet is a great motivator for reminding you of the work you’ve completed. Moreover, this system helps you keep track of the number of articles published, your curation tags, and the publications you’ve published with. You can use your sheet to set your writing KPIs.

What indicates your on track in your writing process?

Do you measure your success by the number of articles you published?

By the words, you’ve put on paper?

Is it the total reading time in minutes, that shows your effort?

Or is it the variety of publications you’re looking for?

Be clear about your key performance indicators. The clearer your goals, the easier it’ll be to reach them.


16. Publish with publications to reach more readers

Instead of self-publishing my first articles, I should’ve spent more time researching suitable publications. Here are the three benefits of publishing with publications:

  • You reach more people
  • By following publication guidelines, your writing improves
  • Thereby, your chances of curation increase

Once you’ve written and edited your piece, research suitable publications, there are medium run publications like Onezero, Elemental, Gen, Zora, Forge and Human Parts, and prominent other publications like P.S. I love you, The Startup, The Ascent, or like this one The Writing Cooperative. If you’re unsure which publication might suit your writing, use medium’s search for your topic. Look which publications recently covered your area of expertise.

Don’t feel discouraged in case publications reject your piece. I applied three times for The Ascent before they accepted one of my articles. See the application process as a free learning opportunity; if editors reject your work, ask yourself how to improve your writing. Ask for feedback and use the publication guidelines to double-check.


17. Done is better than perfect

As a writer, you put your name behind everything you publish. I asked my coach several times how she determines a piece is “good enough.”

Instead of looking for the perfect breakthrough, give your best to produce as much useful content as you possibly can. You have to accept your okayish content if you want to become an exceptional writer.

Don’t overjudge your work and don’t fear to publish something that isn’t perfect. Once you’ve hit publish, you can let your fears go and focus on your next idea.

In retrospect, I wasted my time editing this article for 8 hours. I would’ve used my time better by posting earlier and creating more content.

Done is better than perfect. Hit “publish” once your piece is good enough.


18. Learn to write faster

Megan Holstein said in one of her inspiring articles on writing,

“Every writer’s business is a factory. We can choose to produce a better product, or we can choose to produce more of it. The more writing we put out to the world, the more readers might stumble across our writing.”

By publishing more than 30 pieces a month, my medium coach puts these words into action. Thereby, she earns more than most people I know. Moreover, with quantity comes quality. When you improve your writing speed, your writing quality improves likewise.

To increase my writing speed, I track the time I need to write an article. While this doesn’t sound highly creative, it helps me to keep my goal in mind and to focus on the process.


19. Ideas are everywhere

Whatever idea comes to your mind, be sure to capture it in your idea management board or a journal, so you don’t lose it. Ideas come best when you don’t aim to have them.

Here are some great prompts from my mentor, that helped me getting ideas:

Which stories can you tell from your life?

What’s interesting about your career?

Which resources have helped you in your daily life? How?

Which book have you read that triggered something in you?

What topic are you currently struggling with?

Which vulnerability do you dare to share?

Write about something you care about and be brutally honest about it.

Feel free to try anything you like, whether it’s investments one day and relationships the next. People follow you for your voice, rather than expertise on any given topic.

And whenever you lack ideas, check out Bookshlf to get inspired by academics, distinguished professionals, journalists, and online creators.


Want to join a life-long learning community? Sign up here for applicable insights on reading, learning, and growth.

Filed Under: ✍🏽 Online Creators Tagged With: Writing

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