HUMOR
I Earned $2,372 Off My First Article Without Even Trying
The layman’s guide to becoming an overnight sensation
As a bet with a friend, I decided to write my first Medium article recently. It did pretty well.
I’ve since written a few more viral articles and realized it all comes down to having the right system.
So, I have crafted you this blueprint. Use it and I personally guarantee you success.*
Write what you feel, not what you know
Writing, when it comes down to it, is and always has been about earning money. Anyone who tells you there is an art to it is simply naïve or trying to sell you something. Thus the problem has always been figuring out the best way to get your work seen.
In an effort to make an easy and replicable formula for success, I have actually made a formula.
Picture this:
Your strongest feeling + Your most irrational belief = Your best writing.
See, the inexperienced writer is always falling into the trap of writing on what they understand or at least are trying to understand. The intelligent writer knows that if you feel something strong enough no one can question you about it and it becomes fact.
Nothing kills sales like nuance.
Now, there are a few folks who will see through this tactic. These people are your money makers. Milk those udders for all they are worth.
If someone comments on a piece of yours or tweets about it and you don’t like what they say, here are a selection of words to include in your response to guarantee yourself an army of like-minded, highbrow intellectuals.
- Hurtful
- Offensive
- Anything that ends in -phobic (in a bind make up a new term)
- Racist
- Joshua Cronkhite
Okay, I just added that last one in to get you to tag me. BUT tag me with #O4O and I’ll hook you up with my outrage for outrage service.
Delegate, delegate, delegate
Being productive is about being smart with your time. You’ve got to know what tasks can be outsourced to free you for what matters. To this end, I’ve come up with an elegant system you are welcome to copy.
- First thing’s first, you need to buy Grammarly premium.
2. Find someone who can ghostwrite your posts for cheap. I found this lovely lady from Nicaragua named Maria. She’s great because sHE wilL work as many hours in the day as I need. Be sure to Proofread quickly, though, Maria once tried to craM a secret mEssage into a post after I “refused” payment — as if I wouldn’t notice.
3. Once you have your writer, give them a bullet-point list of what you want to write about. Remember: don’t think, feel.
4. Run the post through Grammarly premium to polish it up.
5. Find an eye-catching feature photo.
6. Publish.
A parting gift
Now that you have the particulars of the operation, you are going to want to keep pointed in the right direction.
If you follow my advice, your posts are bound to blow up. You need to be savvy about this.
Every time I post something I expect to go viral, I have a call-to-action tweet scheduled to post a few hours later.
The reason is simple: someone reads your post and clicks on your socials, what do they want? People want to feel like they are part of something meaningful. If you can manage that, your premiums go through the roof.
Here’s an example of the last tweeted I coordinated with a post:
“You know what, I am DONE. We NEED to dismantle these harmful societal structures #equity #f4f”
I have found the most success comes from high emotion when you combine it with latinate words. ‘Dismantle’, ‘structures’… these types of words are like posh English accents that immediately grant an aura of authority to anything you might say.
In summary
- I am great and you can be better
- Write feelings, not well-thought argument
- Know your buzz-words
- Delegate the boring bits
*The author does not actually promise this.
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