This 1 Book Will Transform Your Writing Business
The Art and Business of Online Writing by Nicolas Cole is indispensable
Author’s Note: This post is not sponsored. It was inspired by a genuine desire to share this book.There a lot of books about writing in the world, and most of them suck.
They give the same old tired advice. They tell you to write every day, but they don’t teach you how to maintain that habit (other than to say “wake up at 5 AM,” of course). They tell you to write what your reader wants to read, but they don’t tell you how to figure out what your reader wants to read. They tell you to start marketing yourself or else you won’t be successful, but they don’t tell you what kind of marketing works well or how to turn that marketing into profit.
I’ve been a professional writer for nearly three years now, and in that time, I’ve read dozens of writing books like this. They’re all the same, and none of them are all that helpful.
Not this one. It’s called The Art and Business of Online Writing: How to Beat the Game of Capturing and Keeping Attention, and it’s different.
After reading The Art and Business of Online Writing, my writing business immediately jumped to the next level.
You know that feeling when you look back on words you wrote six months ago and you are amazed at how far you’ve come? The Art and Business of Online Writing made me feel that way about articles I’d written last week.
If you’re an online writer in any capacity — if you write for Medium, Quora, LinkedIn, or your company blog — you want to read this book.
What The Art and Business of Online Writing Teaches You
This book is written by Nicolas Cole, a long-time online writer and entrepreneur. In addition to getting 100M+ views on his own work, he runs a company called Digital Press that ghostwrites and consults for high-ticket clients. He’s more than qualified to teach us about online writing.
In The Art and Business of Online Writing, Cole covers these three big subjects:
What writing gets popular on the internet and why
People who are novices to the online writing industry have a lot of misconceptions about how it works.
Novices think the more well-known you are, the more people will read your work. In reality, if your name is not a household name, how well-known you are has next to no impact on how well-read your writing will be.
Novices think writing for a website like Business Insider or Inc. Magazine will make your career skyrocket. In reality, writing for either of these magazines often has little impact on your career trajectory.
“The average column on a major publication receives less than 1000 views.” — Nicolas Cole
Novices think people who write for websites like Business Insider and Inc. Magazine make a lot of money. In reality, writers for those websites often make nothing. The perceived credibility of these websites is often the only pay writers get.
Novices think the way to get a lot of people to read your work is to be featured in a magazine. In reality, you can write a blog post that gets millions of views without ever being featured in the news.
“Side-by-side, my Inc column never once outperformed my exposure on Quora or Medium.” — Nicolas Cole
After clearing up all your misconceptions about how online writing works, Cole explains how it does work using easily digestible concepts.
By the end of his explanation, not only will you fully understand how online writing works, you’ll be hard-pressed to believe you ever thought different.
How you can write words that gets popular (while still writing about what you want)
Most writing gurus tell you that to be profitable, you need to write in a profitable category like business, self-help, or personal development.
Cole doesn’t waste time with this. He explains what any good marketer knows: even a small niche audience can support big-time profits if you really get to know your niche and learn what they need.
Instead, Cole teaches you techniques that help you identify your niche audiences. He shows you how you can get tons of readers while writing about what you want.
“Data doesn't lie. But data is also a reflection of the external crowd, and not necessarily your internal compass.”
— Nicolas Cole
Then, he teaches you how to come up with content ideas that you’ll love writing and they’ll love reading. Win-win.
How you can earn a six-figure income off of your online writing
The first secret Cole reveals is one any professional writer already knows; that very, very few published authors live off their royalties.
Sure, writers like J.K. Rowling and Stephen King do, but they’re the outliers. The majority of published authors barely make enough off their royalties to fix up the house and never earn another dime. All those years spent in painful writing, and it amounts to very little.
Wealthy writers don’t live off of book royalties, explains Cole. They find other ways to monetize their writing.
For instance, websites like our very own Medium and Wattpad enable writers to make money based on how many people read their content, bundled into a monthly payment.
Others sell subscription newsletters for $5 or $10 a month to make money. One recently growing platform Substack enables writers to make and sell these subscription newsletters painlessly.
Writers also make video courses of their content, where they bundle everything they’ve written on a subject and turn it into a video course. These are a popular option, as the writer in question can profit well over $100 per customer. That’s a lot more than a $3 book loyalty.
Of course, these products don’t sell themselves. Cole also walks the reader through a flexible process they can use to create products and courses they know will sell.
What Makes The Art and Business of Online Writing Different
Lots of authors attempt to cover these subjects, of course. What makes Cole’s book different is that for every principle he teaches, he uses one of his 1,000+ articles to demonstrate what he means. For every principle he teaches in the book, he includes multiple examples that help you master the concept right there on the spot.
Cole tells me to ask myself what my readers want to read… and then he shows me how. He provides example after example of how he did this himself.
Cole tells me to write in a clear and short manner… and then he explains how people do that, and provides example after example of clear writing vs. vague and meandering writing.
Cole tells me to structure my content in a way that encourages a reader to keep reading… and then he explains to me exactly how, down to how many sentences should be used in different kinds of paragraphs. He wants to make sure you understand.
Who The Art and Business of Online Writing is for
Anyone in the game, from a novice to a seasoned expert. There’s something for all skill levels in this book. And as you get better and better, you can keep coming back to this book to refresh your knowledge and sharpen your skills.
My only complaint about The Art and Business of Online Writing is…
…it doesn’t have a table of contents. That makes it much harder to find what I’m looking for while I’m referencing it for the twentieth time.
Cole, if you’re reading this, please add a table of contents. 😁
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