Are You Ready for the Challenge of a Lifetime Before Committing to Write Online?

Alternative title: Do You Know What You Are Up Against… Online?

I guess I know why you are betting your chips on the internet.

• You yearn for an additional income stream.
• You want to call it a day after 4 hours of deep work.
• You see the widest and deepest market ever built in human history.
• You believe someone somewhere will buy something from you after some time.
• You think this internet game is God, Darn, Easy.

Maybe all of these are irrelevant to you.

You are an online writer or aspire to become one.

You believe (rightly or wrongly) that writing online is the pathway to simple and fast monetization.

To hell with publishers and editors, you scream.

Silently. With trepidation. And a healthy dose of skepticism.

And then you wonder.

I have written online for years.

Where is the beef?

Whenever Someone Tells You That It Is Easy — It Is Not

Context frames the content.

• Go ask the top student in class whether Physics is easy. The answer is Yes!
• Ask the last in class the same question. The answer is a simple and resounding No!
• And then, go ask the dropout that same question. You will get slapped with WHO CARES?

Let’s get back to ourselves and work this out.

• Who did you pose the question to?
• Do they have the credentials to back up their responses?
• Above all, did you ask them how long it took them to be successful?

The first 2 questions are easy.

The third question is the 800-pound gorilla in the room.

Let me offer my opinion.

It’s personal.

It’s unpopular.

The pal who spent 7 years amassing 100,000 followers with a website generating daily sales will tell you this internet thing is easy. I think he meant easy today. Of course. He paid his dues.

The gal who has impression engagement online will tell you that this is the best thing that happens to them. But she does not mention the effort committed daily.

Again, her dues are paid in full.

So, yes.

It is easy for them. Today.

And you ought to believe them.

Why? Because you can check their trails online. Their work and engagement are visible for all to see.

But I hope you scrolled all the way to the bottom.

They were where you are today when they first started.

Life is fair.

All of us start from 0. But our end states are different.

That is the fanciful way of saying some people do well and many others flop.

Banging on the Internet… With Deep Respect

If you write online during after-hours…

You earned my respect.

Here’s why.

• It is difficult to start work after work.
• Writing is never easy. Why should it be?
• You are slapped with disappointments when you gain no audience.

And…

There are times when we must do what we don’t appreciate doing.

• Engage for the sake of engaging,
• Comment to drive profile visibility,
• Grooming an online community to boost organic (inorganic?) distribution of your articles.

And that might translate to…

• Managing a Discord group,
• Replying to questions from members,
• Offering support on their work to help them grow,
• Send newsletters to followers on your email list,
• Create lead magnets to attract subscribers,
• Zoom calls,
• And more.

Are you prepared for this challenge?

I can enumerate the laundry list for online writing because I am trying to be successful at it. You know what you are up against when you are in the trenches.

I don’t know what I am up against if I am going to run an e-commerce platform.

What do I sell?

No idea.

PayPal or Stripe?

I don’t know.

How many landing pages?

Not sure.

Pricing strategy?

I don’t have one.

Target market?

What are you talking about?

The list goes on.

If You Decide to Bet Your Efforts on Writing Online… Do This.

First thing.

Don’t kill yourself.

Like all ambitions and aspirations, it takes time.

Many people I know spent years honing their craft to experience overnight success. Yes, you read that right.

Next, you can be in the limelight today.

You can return to the attention-freezer tomorrow.

That is life.

The World’s Richest Person rotates from Elon Musk to Jeff Bezos to Bill Gates to Bernard Arnault to Larry Ellison to Warren Buffett, ad infinitum.

The same applies to online writing.

Except that wealth is not the determinant for position rotation. Algorithm or spicy headlines do.

This is the game you will be playing.

Be ready for it.

Don’t be upset by it.

The Close

Every aspiration or ambition deserves respect.

And commitment.

It is not easy to experience success on the internet. Why should it be? Everyone else is trying to do what you do.

Yes, it is an opportunity of our lifetime.

Yes, take the plunge.

But… know full well that making a living writing online is not as easy as you imagined.

You are not competing with other online contributors. You are competing for readers’ limited attention.

It is not easy.

Don’t rush it.

Take time to learn and master the game.

It will take years before you experience phenomenal success.

And when you do… enjoy it.

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